


if you live by the word, you die by the pen

by RecoveringTheSatellites



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Detective!Killian, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Sheriff!Emma, crime with supernatural elements, darkness and humor and suspense, with the customary happy end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:07:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 64,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23049796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RecoveringTheSatellites/pseuds/RecoveringTheSatellites
Summary: It's just another day with bad coffee, the day that Sheriff Swan enters Detective Jones' precinct.The fact that his life is about to come apart at the seams is purely incidental.These are the weeds that grow in the spaces between Dashiell Hammett and James Ellroy.My first attempt at crime, suspense, grit, magic, and Noir.
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Comments: 501
Kudos: 193





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [devviepuu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devviepuu/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, @ohmightydevviepuu!!!!
> 
> You are wonderful and lovely and TRULY AMAZING.  
> You are the decryption to my ramblings, the questions that drive me, and my flashlight in the dark.  
> You are the cohesion in my thought processes, the metronome that keeps me in rhythm, and the whisky in my tea.  
> i love you more than i could possibly convey.  
> Have some fic instead.  
> 
> 
> And thank you so much for coming into my life. It is better for having you in it.
> 
> Inspired by the amazing fic noirs which have recently come into my life, the fact that i re-read Black Dahlia, the fact that @profdanglaisstuff is my partner in crime (HA!) and the Goddess of Linguistics, and most of all by @captainsjedi's AMAZING pic set for Halloweek. Please go on tumblr and give her all the love. (And if you want to come say hi, i'm @thisonesatellite over there.)
> 
> (Fic title once again shamelessly stolen from Hilltop Hoods.)

Down past the detritus of broken lives and misspent fortunes; far south of the meaning of good and evil, of truth and lie; past the boneyards of selfishness and decency and broken hearts, and beneath the stripped-down remains of social grace by paint-thinner whisky, lies the soul of a man.

Not his heart, mind you.

That can be found in an entirely different place, a place open and vulnerable and subject to destruction no matter how fortified.

But the soul is what’s left at the bottom of the barrel, and it is  _ its _ health or damage that determines your life.

Too many people misunderstand this distinction.

And too many people believe that they have neither. Heart nor soul.

He believes it.

Among those who sift through the detritus of chances not given and chances not taken, he will always be the disciple of survival and self-preservation. Without fail or fallacy.

So when the blonde shows up on a rainy Thursday afternoon, walks into the bullpen with a soaked manila envelope and a hard edge undercurrent to her voice, he doesn’t notice the seismic shift of every one of his tectonic plates.

Not one bit.

  
  


-/-

“Detective Jones?”

He looks up from the dregs of his coffee. The woman before him looks determined, professional, and yet out of her element. She is wearing small-town-sheriff khaki, complete with a badge and a shiny patent-leather gun belt, and she smiles for a fraction of a second before she remembers where she is.

He crushes the paper cup in his fist and nods.

“You’re Detective Jones?”

He nods again. “How can I help you?”

Her eyes are sharp as she scans him, and he quite obviously does not meet her expectations. 

He can’t blame her for that.

He’s surfing that sweet spot between hungover and roadkill, and very likely looks the part. 

She remains silent and he motions to the chair in front of his desk as he throws the crushed cardboard cup towards the waste basket. And misses.

She shifts for a moment, and he watches her make up her mind.

Finally she sighs and sits down, still clutching the envelope.

_ "You’re  _ Detective Jones?”

He grins. She sounds scandalized at the mere thought. The grin hurts his cheeks.

“I am,” he replies.

“I’m Emma Swan.” She waits for a beat.  _ "Sheriff  _ Emma Swan, from Storybrooke, Maine.”

The name rings a bell. A very faint bell. He looks at her, puzzled

“I’m going to need more than that, love.”

He can feel her bristle at the endearment, even though her demeanor stays woodenly professional. She’s all moxie and daring, facing down the metropolitan detective in his own den.

“You’re British,” she says, and he exhales. The grin took a lot of effort.

“I was,” he says. “You should have been a detective yourself.”

It’s a cheap shot, and her full-body eyeroll does not disappoint. He doesn’t have the energy to apologize.

“Well, I’m Sheriff Emma Swan and I wrote you 27 emails. Twenty-seven. None of which you deigned to answer.”

The penny drops.

Of course.

Her voice is both irritated and anxious now. “But if you’re the Detective Jones August was talking about, I need your help.”

“August?” Something heavy settles on Killian’s chest. “August  _ Booth _ ?”

Sheriff Swan nods. “You know him?”

“I did.” He shrugs. “What’s August doing up in Maine?”

“Mostly occupying my drunk tank,” she answers. “Keeping himself busy with public intoxication and urination and a slew of other nuisances.”

Killian nearly laughs. She looks so very annoyed, it’s almost endearing. He also feels a stab of envy, because she doesn’t have to drag bodies out of sewer drains or sift through arterial blood spatter as par for the course.

But her eyes - her eyes are not those of a small-town cop. Not those of a small-town anyone. She’s silent again for a long moment, and her gaze remains sharp as a razor.

And he really doesn’t want to think of August Booth, not under any circumstance. That’s his own writing on August’s wall.

It’s a very fine line of pure dumb luck that separates Killian from true madness.

“Tell me what you need,” he finally says, because she’s about to make him squirm, and he does not squirm. Not in his own precinct, at his own goddamn desk.

She holds up the envelope. “I have a very odd case, and August said it reminded him of something he investigated a long time ago. With you.”

It’s a cold, freezing finger of fear and absolute dread that runs down his spine at those words, and his breath catches.

He takes a deep breath and shakes his head, because he’s being ridiculous.

She looks at him again, waits for his reply, but when he does not speak she shrugs and opens the soaked envelope. 

From inside she pulls out a photocopy of three notecards.

On each card are symbols, all straight lines and hard angles and no curves, and  _ god not again _ .

“Where did you get those?”

He sees her flinch, but it doesn’t register. His eyes are riveted to the xeroxed notecards.

“They’re part of a case I’m working on.” Her voice sounds a little more unsure than before. He pays no attention to it. 

He looks up at her, hard. “Tell me August didn’t put you up to this. Tell me this is not some kind of sick joke.”

He can tell it isn’t from the confusion in her eyes even before she answers, and the feeling of dread sharpens into a stab of terror.

“A joke?” She shakes her head. “Do you think I would come down here to let you denigrate me in person after writing you twenty-seven emails because my local town drunk put me up to a  _ joke? _ ” 

She’s angry now, and he can’t blame her. 

“These are from a case I’m working on. August saw the cards on my desk and told me to come talk to you. After he turned white as a sheet, mind you, and nearly fainted.” She points to the symbols. “He said you’d worked a case with symbols like these before…?”

Her voice trails off, and for a moment Killian wants to laugh, because here they are,  _ here they are, the sins of the brother, _ come back to demand their due.

He shakes his head to clear it, fights down hysteria, and leans forward. Fixes her gaze squarely. Takes a deep breath.

“Tell me everything. Right now.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

She leans back, to get some distance, but he doesn’t move. He needs to see her face for this. All of her face.   
Every muscle.

“A few weeks back, one of our vagrants disappeared.” She takes a deep breath. “We have a few. They work the docks mostly, stay at a halfway house near the harbor. Usually they keep to themselves and cause no trouble.”

So far she’s not lying.

“One of them disappeared one day and it took almost a week for the people who run the house to report it.” She shrugs. “It is a halfway house after all. People go on benders all the time.”

He nods, motions for her to go on.

“But his brothers swore up and down that Leroy wasn’t like that. That he was missing. And so I started to investigate.” She looks up in defiance. “Of course I can’t claim to have your experience or equipment, but I do know how to find people.”

Cold sarcasm is dripping from every word and he cringes. When he speaks, he tries to make his voice sincere.

“I'm sure you do, Sheriff Swan.”

Her eyes narrow for a brief moment, and then relax a fraction.

“I didn’t find him. Not in Storybrooke. Not in the surrounding area - neither in the forest nor the neighboring towns. But I did find his last known location. A hunting cabin about a mile out, where he had clearly stayed for at least two or three days, judging by the amount of empty food wrappers and bottles of cheap vodka consumed. Also by the amount of wood burned in the fireplace, if we assume the stack next to it had been full when he got there, but of course this last bit of evidence is highly circumstantial.”

Oh, she’s good. She’s all bite now. His earlier comment about her not being a detective must have really struck a nerve.

And he cannot fault her reasoning.

“Either way,  _ detective _ \--” all bite, definitely all bite-- “by the time I tracked him to the cabin he had disappeared without a trace. There was not one single indicator where he could have gone. The truck he’d driven out to the cabin was still parked in front of it. There were no footprints or tracks leading away. It’s October. There is no new plant growth and the ground is soft and rain has been sparse, not enough to penetrate the canopy of trees. Tracks would have been visible for days - footprints, or bent twigs or branches. But there was nothing. Nothing leading away from the cabin. Or to it.”

Sheriff Swan can track in a  _ forest _ . His estimation of her rises, and he had not thought her stupid before.

She takes a deep breath, opens the envelope again.

“But I did find these, on the floor, in the middle of the cabin.”

She withdraws three plastic evidence bags.

Inside each of them is a notecard, white, unlined, innocuous, and on each card is a series of symbols; handwritten, in a rusty brown that used to be red.

The kind of red you get when you dip a quill, an actual bird-feather quill, in blood.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

“Come with me.”

Detective Jones’ voice is brittle and hard, and he looks angry. His glory days are most certainly behind him, if the ill-fitting clothes and the unshaven face and faint smell of alcohol are any indication, but -- gone to seed as he may be -- he is still extraordinarily intimidating.

His is not a request.

It is an order.

Emma follows him almost at a run as he marches out of the station and down the street and neither slows down nor looks back until he slides into a pleather booth across from her. The diner is small and run-down and looks like a relic from the cheap end of the 70s, lard on the griddle and cast-iron black coffee. 

When he looks up, his eyes are blank.

“Why are we here?” 

All of Emma’s righteous indignation has burned off during the walk, and she’s no longer sure what to make of the detective across from her. She knows the type - cocky and damaged and overbearing - but back when he saw her evidence bags, he had been afraid. And no amount of blanking his expression now will make her forget the way terror shone from his eyes earlier, no matter how briefly.

He waits for the waitress to put down two cups and then leans forward again. He did that at the station as well. Entered her space, to observe or unsettle. Or both.

“How long ago did you find the cards?”

Emma doesn’t move, stays where she is. It’s her space, too. “Nine days ago. Or, you know, twenty-seven emails.”

He does not look amused.

“Listen here, Sheriff Swan.” He leans forward even further. It’s uncomfortable. “This is no laughing matter. Nine days, you say?”

“Last Tuesday.”

He leans back. “ _ Fuck _ .” It’s unsettling, the way he says that.  _ He’s  _ unsettled. “Can I see them again?”

Emma nods and hands him the envelope, and there’s a slight tremor in his hands as he takes it from her.

By the time he pulls out the notecards, his hands are shaking, and he wordlessly spreads out the bags on the table, before putting his hands in his lap. He looks at the cards for a long time.

An extraordinarily long time.

Forever.

Emma is nearly done with her coffee by the time he finally looks up.

“This is not good.” He takes out a flask, unscrews it methodically, and takes a long pull. “As a matter of fact, this is very, very bad.” Another long pull. “Sheriff Swan, if I tell you to leave your little town in Maine and go as far away as you possibly can, will you do it?”

Emma starts to laugh and then she catches sight of his face and the laugh dies on her lips. “You can’t be serious.”

He looks at her, and his expression is no longer blank. She’d be hard-pressed to say what exactly it is, but one thing is clear: He is deadly serious. He gathers up the notecards and puts them back in the envelope.

“Run, Sheriff,” he says. “Run fast, run far.”

And Emma wants to break into a rant. She wants to give him a snide, cutting reply, about how he’s been no help whatsoever, and how she’s sick of big-shot detectives telling her how to do her job, but she can’t.   
Because he so obviously means it. He is actually, honestly telling her to  _ run _ .

And it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she is a small-town sheriff.

“You realize I can’t do that,” she says instead.

He sighs. “What if your life depended on it?”

Oh god, he’s serious.

He’s not just damaged. He has a series of screws loose.

“Thank you for your help, detective,” she says, getting up. 

He sighs again and watches her, but doesn’t stop her, and doesn’t reply. And then he hands her the envelope.

For the briefest of moments their fingers touch and something inside Emma  _ explodes _ . Heat screams up her spine and blocks out all sight, all sound, except the  _ ThumpThump _ of heartbeat  _ that is not hers _ , and blood-red, glowing sparks bursting across black.

It only lasts for a few seconds.   
She blinks, and it’s over, and there he is, sitting in the booth taking another sip from his flask. He has not reacted at all, doesn’t react now. Whatever it was, it did not happen to him.

Emma shakes her head to clear it, and then inclines it a fraction before she turns on her heel and leaves. It’s a long drive back to Maine, and before her mind’s eye she sees his face for a long time, his expression torn between fear and misery.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  


The wall doesn’t punch back. That’s the good thing. The bad thing is, his hand now hurts like a bitch.

“Bad night?”

Victor Whale looks Killian up and down until his eyes come to rest pointedly on Killian’s right hand, held tightly in his left.

“The wall offend you?”

Killian rolls his eyes, which does not sit well with his blood alcohol level at all, and he nearly loses his equilibrium. 

Whale shakes his head. “Let me see.”

He pries Killian’s hand loose and inspects his knuckles. Killian in turn wonders if pain is a good enough reason to vomit right here in the hallway, or if he should try to make it back to the men’s room he just came from, when Whale sighs and lets go and the pain recedes markedly.

“Nothing’s broken,” he says. “But next time use your left. You’re right-handed, and this one you’ll feel for a while.”

Killian is inclined to agree.

“Come on, Jones. Let’s get you some ice and a place to sit down.”

Killian wordlessly follows him back to the main bar. He sits down on a free stool while Whale gets the bartender to hand him some ice in a dish towel, and by the time he can put it on his swollen knuckles, the pain has almost sobered him up.

“So - you want to tell me why you’re assaulting concrete, or should I just let you drown yourself as usual?”

Victor’s grin is wicked, but not unsympathetic.

“Fuck off.”

“Ah. Not in the mood to share, I see.”

“I couldn’t tell you if I tried.” Killian sighs. “Can you do me a favor?”

“I just did you several favors.” Whale grins. “ _ Several. _ ”

“And I’m eternally grateful for the field diagnosis and the free fucking ice  _ and  _ the ratty cloth, but that’s not what I mean.” Killian puts the makeshift icepack on the bar. “Can you drive?”

Victor stares at the beer glass in his hand. It’s nearly full. “I can.”

Killian exhales. No part of him wants to do what he’s about to. None. Not a one.

“I need you to give me a ride.”

Fuck. This cannot possibly end well.

Then again.   
It didn’t start well, either.

  
  


-/-

  
  


The station is quiet and dark when Emma walks in. 

She sits down at her desk, a solitary bulb in the small lamp throwing a concise circle on her blotter and keyboard, and then the door opens.   
  


“Did you talk to him?”

August walks in, unusually sober for that time of night, and sits down in front of Emma’s desk. She looks at him, unshaven and haggard and with that slight tremor to his hands, but now she sees it for what it is: He is haunted.   
By something terrible.

She nods. “I did.”

“What did he say?” 

Emma shrugs. 

August leans forward. “He told you to get out. Didn’t he.” 

Emma’s head snaps up. August--- is  _ afraid _ .

She nods and August exhales a shivering breath. 

“You should heed his advice,” he says, his voice scratchy and low. “Leave this place.”

Again Emma wants to laugh, and again she can’t because August, too, means every word. She rolls her eyes instead.

“What is it with you both? You know I can’t do that.”

She is entirely unprepared for August pushing his chair back so hard that it screams across the floor, or getting up to loom over her, both of his hands slamming down on her desk.

“What is with us both is that we have  _ seen it _ ,” he growls. “We have seen what it can do and we have paid for it in blood and lives and sanity, so don’t talk down to me when I’m telling you how to save your life.” 

“Save my----”

“Yes, Sheriff. Save your life. You think I’m just a drunk with a tenuous grasp on reality, but let me tell you----” he slams both hands down on her desktop again--- “you will live to regret staying here and going after this.”

He straightens up, eyes narrow and angry. “Or rather, you won’t live to regret a damn thing.”

“August.” Emma tries to make her voice soft, non-threatening. “What are you talking about?”

He laughs, hard and brittle and viciously joyless.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He shakes his head. “And I’m not going to try.”

He walks to the front door, but turns around one last time as he opens it.

“Don’t be stupid,” he says. “You don’t owe this town a damn thing. Leave while you still can.”

And the door swings shut behind him.

While Emma breathes through a sense of foreboding more pronounced than she has ever had before.

  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  


“Do you have any idea what time it is?” 

Elsa looks disheveled and half asleep, but Killian’s come all this way, and after a good look at his face she opens the door wide and waves him inside.

“Kitchen,” she says. “You need coffee.”

And she’s right. He does.

He hasn’t been back in this house since the funeral. Avoids it like the plague, with its pictures everywhere, with his brother smiling down out of countless frames. He keeps his eyes glued to the floorboards until he gets to the kitchen counter, and then watches Elsa pull out a tin of espresso.

She doesn’t talk, just quietly goes about her task, calm and capable and somber.

After she hands him a steaming cup, she crosses her arms and looks up at him expectantly.

Killian opens his mouth, but no words come out.

He tries again, nothing.   
Takes a sip of coffee, clears his throat, makes another attempt and fails. 

He can’t say it.

Saying it will make it real, and it cannot be real,  _ it cannot be real _ .

“It’s back, isn’t it.”

Elsa’s voice cuts through the silence and anguish and Killian stares at her for a long time.

And then nods.

Elsa exhales a long breath and shakes her head.

“I knew it was going to, someday,” she says. “It’s not like we beat it last time.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, because there’s nothing else to say. “I’m so sorry. But I had to tell you.”

She smiles. Calm and capable and somber. 

Like always.

“Thank you for telling me.” She steps forward and takes his hand. Killian nearly screams.

“Did you do this tonight?” She asks. 

He nods.

“Well, stop it.” She lifts his hand, makes him look at it. “Don’t go punching fucking walls.”

The expletive sounds incongruous on her lips. 

“You go and you stop it.” Her eyes are burning. “You go and you catch it and you fucking stop it. Once and for all.”

And all he can do is nod.

  
  


-/-

  
  
  


It’s her deputy that rings her out of a troubled sleep at 5:27 in the morning, and that is never a good sign. Emma wipes her eyes as she picks up her phone and squints at the alarm.

It is pitch dark outside, and David’s voice is clipped and exceedingly professional. 

“We have a situation,” he says, without preamble. “I need you to come out to the old toll bridge”.

The old toll bridge. A defunct, decrepit piece of rusting steel mesh across a small river, less than a mile from the hunting cabin where Leroy disappeared.

Emma shivers.

This is definitely not good.

“On my way,” she says, and then fights the urge to curl up and pull the covers over her head, like a kid. A kid she’s never been.

Hiding from the world has never been an option for Emma Swan.

So she rolls out of bed and starts to get dressed.

  
  


When she gets to the bridge it takes one look at David’s face to know that it’s very,  _ very  _ bad. He nods at her, solemn and sad, and then points to his left. The sight - thrown into sharp relief by two portable klieg lights - takes Emma’s breath away.

A body has been positioned in the middle of the bridge, a male body, judging from the facial hair, dressed in a long rough linen shirt. He is twisted and prostrate, head down, arms extended straight up past the head and hands cupped together. 

As if he were offering up something.

The off-white of the linen is smeared with blood. Liberally.

Emma walks down to the unmoving figure and takes a long look. 

It is Leroy.

She can clearly see the tattooed  _ Grumpy _ on the back of his neck. All the brothers have their nicknames tattooed that way. 

She can also clearly see that he is dead.

Emma puts on gloves and does a cursory examination. When she gets to his cupped hands she can see he is holding something, but the body is in full rigor. She pulls out her baton for leverage to pry the fingers apart with force, when a voice above her says, “Don’t do that, Sheriff.”

Emma is not proud of it, but she flinches. Hard.

And then she looks up, seething.

Detective Jones looks like something no cat would drag anywhere. He is scruffy and pale and most definitely hungover, his eyes red-rimmed and his unkempt hair tousled in the wind.

But his gaze is clear and his jaw muscles jump as he crouches down next to her, his eyes never leaving hers. 

“Please Sheriff. Don’t touch his hands.”

Then he puts his left hand on Emma’s right and for a moment there is that heartbeat again, thundering in Emma’s ears even though it’s  _ not hers _ , it’s foreign and hard and thumping  _ so fast _ , but then she blinks and it’s gone and he’s still looking at her.

She pulls back.

“What the hell are you doing here, detective? Other than sneaking onto my crime scene and scaring the fuck out of me?”

“It was not my intention to startle you.” Detective Jones looks chagrined. 

“How the hell did you get here? How did you find me? How did you get  _ past my deputy _ ?”

“Much as it may dismay you, Sheriff, I am an actual working member of law enforcement.” He holds up his shield. “I can locate the people I want to find. And a big city badge usually gets you where you want to go.”

Emma resolves to re-educate her deputy on crime scene procedure, but for now she rolls her eyes.

“I’m here to help, Sheriff.” It sounds like it cost Detective Jones a lot to say that.

A lot.

More than he’s really willing to pay.

But much as Emma enjoys seeing him cringe, she doesn’t need a babysitter.

“Your help, so far, has consisted of ignoring me when I did ask for it, and then telling me nothing except to leave this case alone.” 

Jones’ hand comes up to scratch behind his ear, and if ever there was a tell for nervousness, this would be it.

“I don’t need that kind of help. So I would ask you kindly to get yourself and your big city badge away from my crime scene and out of my jurisdiction. Have a nice day.”

He mumbles something that sounds like ‘tough lass’, but before Emma can bristle he gets up and holds up both of his hands in supplication.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff. But I can’t leave.”

“You have no right to----”

“I can’t leave yet. Not before the autopsy is done.”

Emma rises, scowling like thunder and he looks appropriately apprehensive, but he doesn’t back down.

“Please, Sheriff.” His voice is a whisper now, but it’s earnest and imploring and so very serious. “I promise, I am here to help.”

“Fine.” Emma sighs. “Go back to town. I’ll call you when I get the report.”

“You don’t have my number.”

Emma smiles bullets in his direction. “I’m an actual working member of law enforcement. If I want to find you, I will.”

Detective Jones laughs out loud.

It sounds like he has not done so in years. Like he barely remembers how.

But it also sounds like he’s laughing in admiration, not condescension, and it’s nice.

“Sheriff Swan. I believe there’s nothing you can’t do, once you set your mind to it.” He nods at her. “I’ll be waiting.” 

Emma watches him walk away, shoulders hunched and arms folded tightly across his chest, and wonders why he’s really here.

And why he looks so---

“So that’s the detective from Boston?”

David plunks down the gear bag at her feet.

“Yes, yes it is. Why the hell did you let him down here?”

“Emma.” He sighs. “You found him. You wrote him.” He points towards the body. “You see this? You don’t think this is an indication we need him?” He shudders and his voice drops to a whisper. “There is some very weird, very bad stuff going down, and I think this is not the time for misplaced pride.”

Even within the turmoil of her own emotions and her seething anger, Emma almost laughs.

Only David Nolan would steer clear of expletives in the face of  _ this _ . ‘Stuff’ going down, indeed.

She rolls her eyes again.

“I really hate it when you’re the one who makes sense,” she says, and David laughs. Then she unzips the duffel and takes out the camera. “You call the ME?”

“Right after I called you. She should be here in a few.”

Emma turns back to the body and checks the flash units. “Then let’s put our time to good use. Go set our perimeter.”

  
  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  


The woman behind the diner counter has slate-grey hair and the kind of stare that could reduce generals to stuttering school boys. She takes his order of pancakes with narrowed eyes and slams down his cup of black coffee rather harder than necessary.

“You’re trouble.” Her voice is matter-of-fact as she sets down his plate. “I can tell.”

Killian sighs. “I am not. I assure you.”

“Oh, but you are.” She says softly, almost to herself. “Odd things are happening and you’ll turn out to be at their center before long, I’d bet on it.”

He tries to smile at her, but it’s not even 7AM and his head is killing him.

“Don’t bet,” he says. “It’s not worth it. I’m assuming you’re Granny? And this is your diner?”

The woman nods.

“Do you have any rooms?”

She looks at him for a long time, and then nods again, slowly. Goes to the register and comes back with a key.

“And so it goes,” she says, as she hands it to him. “Trouble has come to Storybrooke.”

  
  


The diner door bangs open and the Sheriff’s deputy enters, and Killian gets treated to a whole new set of measuring once-overs.

“Two coffees to go.” The deputy plunks down on the stool next to Killian, and it’s almost painful how clean-shaven and well-groomed and awake he looks. It’s ridiculous - especially at this time of day.

“Why are you here?” The deputy fixes him with a glare, and Killian wishes fervently he’d asked for a room ten minutes ago. He could be sleeping on a mattress with clean sheets and a pillow, for god’s sake. Instead of getting the third degree from some small-town badge.

He takes a sip of his coffee and turns to the infuriatingly fresh face to his right. “I am here to help, deputy. I promise that’s all. When the coroner’s report comes through, I’d like to look at it. It’s very likely that I have some information that will be of service to your investigation.”

“Do you now.” The deputy’s gaze does not lessen in intensity at all. Killian is so tired of being scanned by these people. “And how does a Brit come to carry a US detective shield? Is that even legal?”

Killian grins without amusement. “It is. And that is all I’m going to tell you.”

Granny puts two paper coffee cups up on the counter and the deputy takes them and gets up.

“Watch yourself with Emma,” he says. “I find you messing with her head, or causing her grief in any way, and you and me will have more than words.” He nods at Granny and then turns back to Killian. “Do we understand each other?”

Killian would laugh if the whole thing weren’t so supremely unfunny. So he just nods and watches the deputy walk out.

  
  
  


Upstairs the room is lovely and clean and quiet.

Killian drops his duffel bag in the corner and sits down on the bed. He can feel fatigue in every joint and tendon and sinew, but underneath is a current of terror-fuelled adrenaline he has not been able to shut off since the sheriff showed him the damn cards. 

He feels like his heart has been running at a gallop since the diner, trying to beat its way out of his chest, and there is a small portion of him that wonders how long it will be able to keep up the pace. There’s an echo of a voice in his ears, a remnant; no words, but a familiar cadence, familiar and painful and of no use whatsoever.

There’s the image of August, the way he looked as he slunk off into night and oblivion, broken and defeated, and the image of Elsa as she stands like a beacon in turmoil, undefeated, unbroken, unbent by it all. She carries her sadness like a shield and it is powerful armor.

More powerful than his.

He takes out his flask, because it’s past 7AM, and the sun’s not even up, and his mind is churning, but he also can’t bear to think anymore. He toes off his shoes and curls up under the blanket and closes his eyes.

The pillows smell of fresh cotton and better days, and before he knows it, he’s fast asleep.

  
  


-/-

  
  


“It’s too cold to accurately determine time of death using rigor mortis.” Dr Boyd looks up from her clipboard. “All I can say is that he has been dead more than 12 hours. But at this temperature, it could be days.”

Emma nods. 

“And I can’t tell you cause of death, either,” the ME goes on. “Not until I get him up on my table. There are no signs of force or trauma, from what I can see.”

Emma points to the victim’s back, and the liberal blood smears across the linen. Dr Boyd lifts the garment. It is full of dried, crusted blood, all coming from very small cuts.

“Multiple cuts and abrasions, all of them ante mortem, none of them lethal.” Boyd lets the fabric drop back down. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’d say poison, but no external indicators." She gives Emma a sharp look. "To be quite honest, all I’m sure of at this juncture is that his heart stopped.”

The ME turns and looks up the slope towards her van. “Get your deputy, Sheriff. We’ll have a hell of a time getting the gurney up that hill.”

  
  


When Dr Boyd leaves, Emma takes the cup of coffee from David and walks to the middle of the bridge. She forces herself to stand there and listen to nothing but the gurgling water below and the wind through the trees, because none of this makes sense.

This is Storybrooke. A small, sleepy seaside town in Maine, moderately frequented by tourists between April and October and nothing else. 

Their town is not special. It’s not known for anything. You cannot get ‘the best organic honey’, or ‘the best lobster’, or anything else here that you cannot get in a hundred more picturesque towns up and down the coast. They have a harbor that deals in actual freight, and the laborers that come with real work being done, and although their town is well-kept and clean, it is not exceptionally pretty. It has few tourist amenities and no attractions. The people they do get are usually the ones simply looking for a quiet time, renting rooms at Granny’s or cottages at the edge of town to get away from the stress of a big city. They go on walks and wander the town and give the stores enough business to stay afloat, and that’s it.

Their town is not special. 

Its people are not special.

They are lovely and sometimes willfully shrewish and they drive her nuts on occasion, but they are normal. They lead small, sedentary lives, and other than the occasional bar brawl and public intoxication Emma has no real trouble to deal with.

There is no reason, none, why this should happen here.

Why murder should happen here.

Why corpses are put on display and notes are left written in  _ blood _ .

It makes no sense.

But it terrifies her.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO MUCH for being so patient, everyone.  
> i'm back now, and updates will come much faster, i promise.  
> (Not FAST. But fastER. i swear.)


	3. Chapter 3

Killian is woken by hard, repeated pounding on his door and throws his shoe at it to make it stop. It doesn’t.

“Detective Jones!”

Ah. The Sheriff. Of course.

“Detective Jones, I need you to wake up.”

How does she know he was sleeping? Then again - she has eyes. He was well on his way towards collapse the last time she saw him.

“I’m  _ coming _ !” 

He yells in the direction of the door, because he really needs the fucking pounding to stop. And this time it does. Mercifully.

He groans as he peels away the blanket he’s twisted into like a warped cocoon and very slowly makes his way to the door. Waking up is by far the worst part of every day. His hand slips twice on the doorknob before he’s able to turn it.

“Sheriff. Do you have any idea what time it is?”

The sheriff’s eyes are harder than flint, and her entire expression is so far past amused, it almost makes him smile. Or it would, if he weren’t absolutely sure that smiling would take his head clean off his shoulders.

“It’s past noon, detective, and I need some answers.”

Killian stops himself from shaking his head at the very last moment and instead he turns, walks back to the bed and plunks down on the mattress.

“Come in, shut the door, and for god’s sake, lower your voice,” he whispers, closing his eyes and massaging his temples. 

She slams the door with a bang, and he almost can’t blame her. He is being an ass. But god, his head hurts and her voice is so  _ loud _ .

“Look at me.” 

It’s a command, and he opens his eyes slowly to find her standing immediately in front of him, looking down on him. But he manages to hold her gaze.

“I need to know why you’re really here,” she says, and he knows that this, here, is the end of her patience. “You ignore me for days. You belittle me when I come find you at your precinct. You drag me to a diner for privacy and then tell me to run. And then you show up out of the blue, at my first murder.  _ Offering help _ . I’m about to haul your sorry ass down to the station and make you suspect number one, so I ask you again, what the hell are you really doing here?”

Well, she has a point. When put that way, she really has cause for suspicion. Oh, this would be so much easier if she weren’t smart.

“You should know, ” she bends her face towards his, “I’ll know if you’re lying. So give me the truth, now, all of it. Or I take you in.” 

He has to close his eyes, briefly, because her gaze is laser-focused and unsettling, and also because her eyes are very, very green.

“Sit down, Sheriff,” he finally says. “Please sit down and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“Why am I here, deputy?”

Mary Margaret Blanchard looks spectacularly unamused. Then again, it is a cold and dreary day, and he has dragged her from her cozy living room out to the middle of nowhere.

David sighs. 

“Graham recommended you.” Her eyes narrow. “He said you were by far their best tracker.”

The left corner of Mary Margaret’s mouth ticks up for a brief moment.

“Did he now,” she drawls, looking straight at David with an expression he cannot possibly identify, and something hot sparks in an unfamiliar place deep inside him.

It’s unsettling.

She leans forward. “Flattery will get you everywhere. But make it quick, because I’m freezing my ass off out here, and I’d like to get back to my couch as soon as fucking possible.”

David laughs. There’s nothing like an elementary school teacher who gives her expletives free rein on Sundays and can track circles around the local hunting club.   
Shoot circles around them, too, if Graham can be believed.

“I need your help,” David says, and Mary Margaret quirks an eyebrow. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the tragedy which occurred here last night.”

She nods, somber now. “Everybody’s heard.”

David looks at his watch. “Damn. It’s not even 1 o’clock yet. That’s gotta be some kind of record for the grapevine.”

Mary Margaret smiles. “The ME stopped by Granny’s for coffee on her way back to Bangor.”

“In that case I’m amazed it’s not yet trending on Twitter.”

She laughs, and David has to smile, because that was his intention.

“Anyway,” he goes on, “this is where the body was found. Now - you’re a civilian, so I couldn’t bring you on site while the sheriff and the ME were still examining everything, but now that they’re gone---”

“You want me to read a  _ crime scene _ ?”

David wishes it didn’t sound quite as ludicrous as it does.

He looks at Mary Margaret in apology. “I know it sounds crazy, Miss Blanchard, but---”

“You realize I’m a teacher. And in no way trained in forensics.” She is shaking her head. “Hell - I taught myself to track, I never even took a course or anything.”

David smiles. “Don’t worry. Nothing about this is official. You won’t have to testify in court, and it’s OK if you make a mistake, or find nothing.” Her shoulders relax a fraction. “But I know this victim was killed somewhere else, and I know there have to be signs of the body having been relocated. I know it.”

“Hang on.” Her voice is calm now, professional, interested. “Are you telling me a body was moved here from somewhere else and there were no signs of it having been transported? Anywhere?”

David nods.

Mary Margaret’s eyes light up.

“Show me.”

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“This is not the first time I have been confronted with similar circumstances.”

Detective Jones’ voice is terse, and Emma huffs.

“Really? That’s the line you’re giving me? That you’ve seen this kind of thing before?”

He looks up, half angry, half chagrined.

“If you could please hold your sarcasm to the end, Sheriff, I’d be eternally grateful.”

Emma bites down hard on a comeback referencing the sarcasm dripping from Detective Jones’ own replies, and waits for him to go on instead.

“The short version is, yes, I have ‘seen this kind of thing before.’ I was a consultant with the Boston PD at the time, so not officially on the force. That came later.”

He stops, clears his throat. He’s very much not looking at her, eyes fixed on a point behind her left shoulder.

“It was a long, drawn-out case, involving a task force of several detectives and a whole string of victims and notecards, and long story short, we lost some of our own and we never caught the culprit. The murders stopped and the case grew cold, and that’s it.”

His eyes are still focused on that point behind her. His body shakes, very slightly. This is a man near the end of whatever fragment of his tether has not yet frayed in his hands. 

For the first time since meeting him, Emma feels a stab of empathy. There is such heaviness in his words. The crushing weight of all the things not said. 

“Was August Booth part of the task force?” She keeps her voice quiet now. 

“Yes. He was.” It sounds resigned. And final. Like August’s life is over.

“But then why did you ignore my emails? Your trail was cold. I would think you’d jump at the chance for a new lead.”

The detective’s head snaps up at that, his gaze meeting hers full-force, and it’s  _ furious _ .

“Are you fucking kidding me, Sheriff? This case was the bane of my existence. It cost me more than you could  _ possibly  _ know, it cost August more than you could  _ possibly fathom _ , and the only good thing,  _ the only one _ , was that it went away when it did. It would have broken all of us in the end, if it hadn’t stopped.” He takes a deep breath, and his hands are shaking in earnest now. “It  _ will  _ break all of us in the end, all of us. You, me, your deputy, your coroner, your precious town and everyone in it. You’ll see. There will come a day when you’ll look back at our first meeting and wish to a god you don’t believe in that you’d taken my advice and run. Mark my words. This will  _ end  _ you.”

He slumps suddenly, as if all the air were left out of him at once. His gaze grows distant again, his voice drops to a whisper.

“Not that it matters, but I don’t check emails that don’t pertain to my cases. Ever. And I wish I’d never heard of you.”

And Emma feels the burden of unspoken tragedy around her neck like the weight of the dead.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  
  


“Anything?”

David looks at where Mary Margaret is bent over, running her gloved hands down the slats of the toll bridge. She looks up puzzled and shakes her head.

“No, deputy. I mean - I told you I’m not in forensics. But there is no spoor here, not of anything.” Her voice trails off, and she looks around, bewildered. When she looks back up at him, her eyes are wide.

“Deputy. There are no traces here of  _ anything _ . Man nor beast. Nothing. That’s impossible.”

She sweeps her arm in a wide arc. 

“I can clearly make out your footprints of course, and those of the sheriff, and another set which I assume is the ME---” she turns--- “judging from the fact that among other things, they run alongside yours and the wheel marks of what can only be a gurney.” She points up the hill. “You must have had a bitch of a time getting that thing up  _ that  _ slope on ground this soft.”

David has to smile again. Her expletives are so endearing. And they did have a bitch of a time.

“And then, of course, there are my own footprints.” She grins. “Although I have managed not to trample a freeway across potential sign.”

David shrugs and can feel himself blush. He tries to tamp down on it and it makes him blush more.

“But nothing else.” Mary Margaret’s face becomes serious again. “And I mean nothing. There should be dozens of animal tracks here. From that side,” she points across the bridge, “the river is an easily accessible watering hole. There should be no end to the spoor found here.”

She looks helpless.

“But there is nothing. Like no animal has come to water for days.”

“How many days?” An awful suspicion dawns on David and fear starts to spread in his gut like hot lead.

Mary Margaret looks at him sharply. It is obvious that she has picked up on the note of worry in his voice. Sign is not the only thing this woman can track.

She observes with all senses.

“A week at least, deputy. Maybe more.”

“Nine days?” David croaks, and has to clear his throat. “Could it be as long as nine days?”

She nods. “Easily.”

_ Fuck. _

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  
  


He looks at her with those blue eyes and that soft smile. Like she’s the only person on the planet.

“I know you can do it, love.”

His voice is warm and sure and he takes her hands.

“I’m here.”

It fills her with strength and confidence, and she closes her eyes. She can feel his forehead as he leans against her, the soft brush of his nose, a whisper of breath across her cheek.

From out of the depth of her center she tries to conjure a spark.

“I’m here, Emma. You can do this.”

His lips brush her ear as he whispers, and his hands fold around hers, squeeze gently.

She exhales.

She can do this.

She is afraid, but he is here, with her, and she can---

“ _ Sheriff? _ ”

Emma’s eyes snap open and she finds herself face to face with Detective Jones. She is much too close, mere inches from his wide, confused eyes, and she is  _ holding his hands _ .

“Ow,” he says, and she lets go as if burnt. 

He smiles a pained smile and rubs his right hand. Its knuckles are red and swollen. He has thrown a recent punch against something hard.

Emma takes two large steps back, and the detective looks up at her. 

“What just happened, sheriff?” He looks worried and unsettled.

“I don’t---” She shakes her head. “What did I do?” It’s a whisper.

“You asked me to come to the coroner’s office, and then you got up, and then suddenly you turned and took my hands.” He stares at his own hands as if they weren’t parts of his body, and then looks back up at her, still with that worried look. “Your skin was--- really warm. And it felt---”

“Safe.” The word is out before Emma can stop it.

She takes another step back and shakes her head. “I’m sorry, detective. I didn’t mean to say that. Or do that. It was completely unprofessional.”

“No, sheriff, I--- are you all right?” The worry has racked up several notches, and Emma cringes.

“I’m perfectly fine. Please accept my apologies. It won’t happen again.”

Out of the corner of her eye she can see him nod.

Then she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and squares her shoulders. When she turns back to face him, she is calm once again.

“So - will you come with me to see the ME?”

He nods.

“We have to drive to Bangor for it.”

He nods again, gets up, puts on his jacket and grabs his service revolver from the night stand. He is silent all the way to the car, all the way through town, down the freeway, and to the Bangor morgue. 

Finally Emma pulls into the parking lot and shuts off the engine and he looks up at her as he opens his door.

And says, “It did feel safe. I felt it, too.”

  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  
  


“You’re Detective Jones?”

Dr Ashley Boyd is blonde and tall and looks like she could take on a Sphinx in a staring contest. And win. She’s all hard angles and flint. Killian nods.

“How do you know our medical examiner?” Sheriff Swan looks exceptionally perturbed by this. But this may be in part because of what he said in the car. And there is absolutely no way in hell he’s thinking about that right now.

Or ever.

Instead he shrugs, and lets Dr Boyd answer. 

“He called me earlier,” the ME says, right on cue. “Warned me not to open the hands. He was quite persuasive.”

Sheriff Swan turns and raises an eyebrow in contempt, but the coroner heads her off at the pass.

“I have learned to listen to people who are deadly serious, and he was. He also said you both would be by later today.”

Emma huffs in what is clearly the indignation of finding herself a foregone conclusion, but he can only pay marginal attention to her ire.

His eyes have fallen on the body on her table.

Supine now, the Y incision already sewn up, and his hands outstretched over his head, fingers loosely clamped around---

Emma follows his eyeline and lets her gaze wander over the body for almost a minute before she looks up and nods at Dr Boyd.

“I could not determine cause of death. There is quite literally nothing wrong with him.”

“What do you mean?” For the first time the sheriff sounds truly uncertain.

The ME picks up her clipboard. “Preliminary tox screen and bloodwork show no poison. Blood alcohol was .05 percent - elevated, but not anywhere near fatal. Not even legally drunk. Heart, kidneys, liver and all other organs are comparatively healthy and seem to have been functioning within normal parameters. There was no sign of trauma or critical damage anywhere, no bruises, lacerations, external or internal bleeding. No blood clots, no signs of stroke or heart attack, no arterial blockage, no illness. In short, the only thing that happened is that his heart stopped. For no reason at all.”

Killian can see the sheriff go pale. He feels his own knees turn to rubber, has to grip the edge of the table.

“Anything else you can tell me?” Emma’s voice is strained, but steady. She’s a tough one, no question.

“Yes.” The ME points at the body and then looks at Killian. “Help me turn him over, detective?”

Everything inside Killian wants to say no.  _ Everything. _

But he nods. 

It’s better to know.

  
  
  
  


Emma holds her breath as they turn the corpse, and then steps closer to get a good look.

Leroy’s back is littered with symbols.

They look like the same type of symbols which were written on the notecards, and they are carved into his skin, written in his own blood, smeared in many places.

“I have not yet been able to determine what type of blade made these incisions.” 

The calm detachment in Dr Boyd’s voice is almost disturbing.

“They vary greatly in both depth and size. Some seem to have been made by a rather dull edge, some by a very sharp one, some even by a point. It makes no sense at all. I’d say it was at least three different weapons were it not for the fact that some of these sharpness changes occur in the same cut.”

_ “This is not the--- _ ”

The detective’s voice cuts through the ME’s explanation even though it’s low and hesitant. He’s standing at the opposite side of the steel table, leaning over the body, white as a sheet, staring at the signs.

His right hand is running alongside the runes, an inch above skin, shaking hard.

“Detective Jones?”

He doesn’t hear her at all. But now there is a look of intense concentration on his face - brow furrowed, eyes focused, lips pursed. His hand keeps following the symbols, and there is new purpose in its movement as his voice drops even lower. 

  
“ _ Nod eh ve? Y Ghaelg? _ ”

He is clearly talking to himself. In tongues.

“ _ \---Vel eh jantagh? _ Could it be  _ the primitive _ ? Genitive? ...  _ Dovaidona maqi _ \--- the endings there could be the same as… but-- how could it? Unless… unless it’s all old? But was it old before?” He looks up, and there is desperation in his eyes. “Why is it different now? What does it  _ mean? _ ”

Emma puts up her hand to keep Dr Boyd from speaking, and slowly walks around the table. Detective Jones’ eyes follow her, but he remains where he is.

When she reaches him, he pulls back his right hand from above the body, clasps it firmly in his left.

“It’s different this time. It’s the same, but it’s  _ different _ .”

He looks at Emma as if she knows what he’s talking about. His anguish is palpable.

“Detective?” She tries to make her voice soft, unassuming. “Are you telling me you can  _ read _ these symbols?”

“I--- I don’t---” His voice trails off.

She tries again. “Is this a language? An actual language?”

He shakes his head. “Kind of. Not really.”

Emma wants to grab his shirt front and shake him.  _ Kind of. Not really. _ What the fuck is she doing here with this damaged shell of a detective who’s a breakdown away from psych commitment? And who keeps speaking in goddamn riddles?

She wants to scream at him until he says one straight fucking sentence which doesn’t make her chase its meaning down a dozen cryptic dead ends, but then she catches his eyes, and oh god, he is  _ terrified _ .

Fuck.

She’s going to have to be the grown-up here.

Why the hell does she always have to be the adult?

But then he speaks. 

“It’s a quill, Dr Boyd.” He nods at Emma, back in control, and then looks at the coroner. “The blade. It’s a quill. Sharpened by hand, unevenly. I don’t know from which animal. A large one.”

“How could you possibly know that?” 

Emma can’t blame the doc. It’s ludicrous. But she answers when the detective remains quiet. 

“He has had a similar case before. That’s why he came to assist me on this one. He thinks they might be connected.”

“You’ve seen this before?  _ This? _ ” Detective Jones nods, but still doesn’t speak, and Dr Boyd shakes her head. “What was the cause of death in your case?”

“Undetermined.” The detective’s voice sounds strained. “We never found cause of death either.”

“Great,” the ME says, and at that moment rigor mortis gives and right next to Emma’s thigh Leroy’s fingers slowly open, and she stretches out her hand, and----

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

He catches her wrist in an iron grip and yanks it away with so much force, Emma has to take two steps back to keep her balance.

The morgue goes completely quiet as both Emma and the ME stare at the detective. The only sound is his labored breathing as he returns their stares, eyes flitting from one face to the other. 

“Don’t touch his hands. Please. Don’t go anywhere near them.”

He very slowly releases Emma’s arm.

Dr Boyd clears her throat with the unmistakable air of someone who has had enough of  _ everything _ .

“Detective,” she says, in a tone which could freeze lava, “it is perfectly apparent that you do have some rudimentary knowledge about this case, and that you’re operating under considerable emotional duress.”

It sounds like she’s actually a step away from having him committed.

“But I must insist you not tell me what to do in my own---”

“You’ll be the next victim.” His voice is blunt and resigned and it stops Dr Boyd’s rebuke in its tracks. Emma’s breath hitches.

“I don’t know how, I don’t know why.” He sounds drained. “I don’t know so many things, so many things I  _ should _ know, after all this time. But I do know this.” He looks at Emma. “Touch the victim’s hands and you’re next.”

His shoulders slump, and Emma turns to the ME.

“Ashley.” She has never called Dr Boyd by her first name while at work, not once. Until now. “Ashley, I think we should listen to him.”

Dr Boyd nods slowly. “Perhaps.” She straightens up. “I don’t like being told what to do in my own morgue by a detective clearly cruising for a psych leave, but-- ” she picks up a pair of forceps-- “there is no harm in caution.”

She turns towards the corpse. “I assume it’s all right to check what he’s holding? By way of stainless steel?” 

She holds up her instrument and the detective nods. Emma takes a step towards him. Tremors are running unchecked through his entire body.

“You know what’s in his hands, don’t you?” Her voice is a whisper, and he simply nods.

Dr Boyd starts to spread apart the fingers and Emma steps forward to get a good look.

And there it is.

Grey, brown, and white, and smeared with blood.

The quill.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience with me.  
> i may not be as fast with the next update - because OMG this story is so complicated already! - but i am writing as fast as i can.


	4. Chapter 4

When they’re back in the car he’s almost aloof again, and Emma would believe the performance if she didn’t have his tells catalogued by now. But she does, and so she sees his act for what it is: Empty.

She gives him a thorough once-over, from the way he slouches as if he doesn’t have a care in the world, to his hooded eyes and the fact that he’s not looking at her, to the seatbelt which he’s holding in a still slightly trembling hand.

“Detective Jones.” Once again she makes her voice soft, serene. “We’re so far past playing this game.” She shakes her head and looks at his clenched jaw, at his white-knuckled grip on the click-lock, and puts her hand on his arm.

Something _howls_.

The foreign heartbeat explodes between her temples, pounds inside her head in time with the howling, and her vision fades, red sparks across black swirls, and she can feel herself fading---

fading---

“Sheriff Swan?”

The howling heartbeat vanishes completely, is replaced by something light and warm and _wonderful_.

When she opens her eyes, he has got her hand in both of his, apprehension clear on his face. 

“Are you all right?”

She looks down at their hands, and back up at his worried expression, and smiles. The warm glow inside her spreads.

“I’m fine,” she says, and it’s nothing but the truth. “And you have so much explaining to do, detective.”

He lets go of her hand and gives her his very first genuine smile back.

“So do you, Sheriff,” he says, and finishes putting on his seat belt. “So do you.”

-/-

The knock is neither gentle nor hesitant. And definitely persistent. When David opens his door Mary Margaret Blanchard nearly falls forward. She has to take a moment to regain her balance, and he looks her over.

She’s spooked.

  
“Deputy Nolan,” she says, catching her breath and lowering her fist. “You’re home. Good.”

“Ms Blanchard?”

She ignores him completely and goes on. “I went to the station, but the front desk intern said the sheriff went to Bangor, and you weren’t on call until later, but this was an emergency and I----”

“An emergency?” David shifts into cop mode. “What kind? Are you all right Ms Blanchard?”

“You say Ms Blanchard like I’m a hundred years old,” she says, her mouth a thin line. “Please call me Mary Margaret. And I’m fine. But I think you have to see this.”

David relaxes a bit. She seems unhurt, and he’s glad. “See what?”

She looks up at him, all crinkly brows and earnest eyes, and he bites down hard on a smile. She is so serious.

“So, I went back to the bridge earlier, and I---”

“You did _what?_ ” Freezing cold fear runs down David’s spine and he just manages to stop himself from grabbing her shoulders. “You went back to the crime scene? Alone?”

The look she gives him. On his best day, his most sarcastic response couldn’t bear the load she expresses with one raised eyebrow.

“Deputy Nolan,” she says, like she’s holding on to her patience with both hands. “You realize that I know those woods better than you and the sheriff and half the town put together?”

She is formidable in her exasperation and he doesn’t know whether to grin, or cringe, or both. Somehow she has mastered the art of being both five feet short and taller than he is, and it’s confusing. 

But the matter at hand is not the laughing kind, and so he remains stern.

“You realize that a murder happened on that bridge, right?”

Mary Margaret does a full-body eyeroll. “You realize that murder happened nowhere near that bridge, right? And that I am armed?”

She points behind her and does a quarter-turn, and only now does he see the strap across her chest attached to the rifle case on her back.

The cop snaps back front and center. “What do you have in there?”

“Winchester Model 70---”

“You have a _Winchester?_ ”

“Yes, deputy, I do, pre-1964, and I have all the permits, now can you please listen for a moment?”

David whistles and nods.

“ _Finally._ ” Mary Margaret exhales. “I went back to the toll bridge because I remembered something. This morning, when you took me there, I remember feeling something very strange on the underside of the metal slats, but I was so busy trying to make sense of the millions of tracks---” she looks sharply at David, who shrugs--- “I didn’t pay any attention to it. I only remembered after I got home.”

She points her chin at her truck.

“I really think you should come with me. It’s better if I show you.”

-/-

“We have to find August.”

They’re ensconced in the last booth at the back of the Rabbit Hole, and Emma is lost in thought, trying to make sense of this very long day. She doesn’t hear or see Killian come back from the bar, doesn’t notice him put down a bottle of beer in front of her as he slides into his seat and takes a sip of his own, doesn’t hear the detective’s request until he repeats it.

“Sheriff. We have to find August.”

She comes back to the present, takes a long sip. “Why?”

“Because he can help us,” he says, and his brow furrows. “And because he’s in danger.”

“Detective Jones---”

“Killian.” He nods. “I think we’re past formalities.”

Emma takes a moment to size him up. Ranks and titles have their place - they command respect and provide professional distance - but his offer is genuine. He isn’t trying to fraternize, or muscle in on her territory. 

She nods and he gives her his second genuine smile. When she says, “Emma”, it grows wide for a moment.

And then it falls.

“Look.” Emma closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “I have been very, _very_ patient with you.” When she opens them again he is focused on her, blue eyes intent, studying her expression. “But I’m done being your little experiment, or whatever it is you’re doing. You have told me nothing concrete. You’ve given me bits and pieces of what I assume is a puzzle you’ve been working on for a while now, and I am done guessing.” She leans forward. “Stop stringing me along. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I’ve told you about what happened back in Boston---”

“You’ve told me _shit_.” Emma’s palm hits the table hard, and he flinches. God, he looks miserable, but she cannot afford to care. She needs answers. 

Lives depend on it.

“You’ve given me the fucking CliffsNotes version of the _tourist guide_ to your case. You’re _clearly_ afraid--” he flinches again, hard--- “and what you saw in the morgue _clearly_ means something to you. Talk to me. Let’s figure this shit out and be done with it.”

He looks up at her, eyes sharp, thoughtful, and unhappy.

“Back in the car,” his voice is a whisper, “what happened when you touched my arm?”

Emma frowns, but he goes on.

“I’m not trying to change the subject, I promise.” He smiles a wan smile. “Please tell me what happened?”

“I heard a kind of heartbeat.” Emma cringes. “And a--- weird sort of moaning voice, but without words. Like a howl? But not an animal howl, more like---”

“Wind? More like wind?” His eyes are riveted to hers, unblinking.

Her jaw drops. “How could you _possibly_ know that?”

“Fuck.” He leans back and covers his face with both hands. “God _dammit._ ”

“Killian?”

His hands drop at the mention of his name. “I was afraid of that. _Fuck_.” 

Then he pulls out his phone. “Emma,” he says, and his tone is deadly serious. “Do you trust me?”

What an odd question from someone she’s known for two days, and who has given her the runaround for most of that time. What’s even odder is that the answer is yes.  
It’s a resolute yes, a yes she doesn’t have to think about, she doesn’t have to question, because it just _is_.

And so she nods.

His relief is palpable.

“Thank you,” he says, and it might be the most sincere thing she has ever heard. Ever. 

“I need you to come to Boston with me,” he says. “I need you to talk to someone.”

“Now?” Emma looks at her watch. It's past 7 PM. “You want to drive to Boston now? That’s four hours away!”

He shakes his head. “Somerville, actually, and I have a police cruiser. We can make it in less than three.” He holds up his phone. “I just have to make a call first.”

“Wait.” Emma holds out her hand, but is careful not to touch him. “Wait, please.”

He puts down the phone.  
“Make me understand,” she says. “Every time I touch you weird things happen, and now you tell me we have to go to Boston, when I have a literal murder to solve here, and---”

“Every time?” He looks stricken. “Weird things happen every time you’ve come in contact with me? _Every time?_ ”

She nods.  
“That--- back in the car? That wasn’t the first time?”

He sounds terrified. Emma shakes her head.

“Emma,” he whispers. “What other times? What happened then?”

She bites her lip, shakes her head again, and fights hard against the urge to prevaricate. “At the diner, when you handed back the notecards.” She keeps her voice noncommittal. “On the bridge, when you stopped me from examining Leroy’s hands.”

He nods, and if possible, the terrified look on his face has gotten worse.

“And in the morgue? When I yanked your hand back?”

“I don’t know.” Emma tries to remember. “I’m not sure, but--- I don’t think so. That’s odd.”

His eyes are still glued to hers, and his voice drops back down to a whisper.

“And in my room? When you--- in my room?”

She cringes. “No. That was different.”

“Different?”

“Yes, different.” She says it with finality, because she is not telling him how, and he gets the message, because he nods and once again picks up his phone.

“Please, Emma,” he says, as he unlocks it. “Please trust me on this. This is so much worse than I thought.” 

He looks up, and it’s equal parts defeat and defiance. It hurts a part of her that has never before felt pain. 

“You have to come with me, tonight. _Please_.”

There is no way she can say no to that. None. 

“Who’s in Boston?” She asks instead.

He swallows hard. “Someone we need to see,” he says, and the words sound heavy. “Someone who can explain all of this better than I can.”

Emma leans forward. “And this is important? So important we have to drive there in the middle of the night?”

He nods.

“Fine,” she says, and pulls out her own phone. “I’ll let my deputy know I’ll be in late tomorrow.”

The relief in Killian’s face is nearly unbearable.

She thinks she sees tears in his eyes.

-/-

It’s dark by the time they get to the bridge, and David pulls out a spare flashlight for Mary Margaret, who smiles brightly at him as she pulls out her own.

Which is at least twice the size of David’s police-issued torch and four times as expensive.

She quirks a lascivious eyebrow and he can’t help it, he laughs out loud. She’s _priceless_. 

Not that he’s noticed anything of the kind. At all. In the 8 months and 27 days after he first ran into her at the diner while getting his morning coffee.

And it’s not like he’s been getting his coffee at the exact same time in the 8 months and 26 days since then.

Not at _exactly_ the same time

Not every _single_ day.

Mary Margaret turns on her superior flashlight and heads towards the bridge and the laughter leaves David all at once as he hurries to catch up. It’s not safe out here. He should tell her not to go hunting until they catch the culprit.

Then again, he knows exactly how that conversation would go.

When they get to the bottom of the hill, Mary Margaret simply walks out to the middle of the bridge--- and lies down. Flat on her back.

And then motions for David to do the same.  
For a moment he’s not sure if he’s somehow slid into a parallel universe.

“Come on, Deputy.” She sounds impatient. “The view is better from below.”

David chokes and sputters.

It takes him a full 30 seconds to lie down next to her, and her grin is not making it any easier. But then she points her torch up, runs it along the underside of the bridge railing, and there they are.

Symbols.

Set in steel, all straight lines and jagged angles and no curves.

Along the entire length of the bridge.

-/-

“Emma, wake up. We’re here.” The voice is quiet and warm. 

Emma opens her eyes.

From what she can see in the glow of the street lamps, they’re parked in front of a quirky town house with wooden siding, lopsided bay windows and a steepled porch. It looks a bit like a fictional mad professor’s home, and Emma grins for a moment as she stretches her limbs.

The street is empty and quiet and Killian locks the car.

“Ready?” he says, and Emma doesn’t know who he’s asking, her, or himself.

She nods.

Watching him walk up the path to the front door is like watching someone wade against a strong current; it looks like he could succumb and turn and drift away at any moment.

But he doesn’t.

In the end he gets to the door, his shoulders tense and his breathing fast, and then takes almost a minute to calm himself, exhales long, eyes closed. When he opens them again, he doesn’t look at her, just rings the doorbell.

The woman who opens is tall and gorgeous and almost regal, despite the fact that she’s wearing sweatpants. Her movements are slow and heavy, but her smile is genuine.

Nothing about it is warm or comforting, but she is glad to see Killian, that much is obvious.

“Twice in three days, detective,” she says as she steps back to let them in. “And sober to boot. What’s the occasion?”

Killian nods at Emma. “Elsa, this is Sheriff Swan. She needs your help.”

“What?” Emma turns. “I don’t--- I need what now?”

Elsa smiles a cryptic smile and points down the hallway. “The living room is on the left, Killian can show you. I’ll be right back with coffee.”

The house is the kind of silent you only get when someone lives alone. Emma walks down the hallway, past walls full of pictures, dozens of them. Frames of all sizes and shapes, and they all bleed sadness.

The whole house is filled with it, bowed by it, silenced by it.

When they enter the living room there are even more pictures, frames on every surface, an avalanche of smiling faces and colors and happiness trapped inside silver salt molecules. One face dominates most of the images, a man with close-cropped brown hair and a warm expression. Elsa is in a fair number as well, laughing in a way that makes her look like an entirely different person.

Killian sits down on the couch, his head in his hands, but Emma walks around the room, looking at everything, taking it all in.

Until she gets to the far wall and sees a picture in which the brown-haired man is young, really young, early twenties at most. He has his arm around another man’s shoulder. The picture is a little faded and a little out of focus, but the building behind them looks familiar, and she can clearly make out the face of the man next to him. Barely out of his teens, blue eyes sparkling, dark hair disheveled; his smile wide, his stance carefree, and his whole life before him.

He looks nothing, nothing like the man she knows, but it’s him, of that there is no doubt.

“That’s Cambridge. The day I got my degree.”

Emma turns.

Killian is standing next to her. His face is unreadable. A muscle in his jaw jumps, and suddenly Emma feels the wave of sadness that’s been hovering at the edges break full force over her head and bury her. She can hardly breathe.

He smiles the most forlorn smile she’s ever seen, and it’s so heavy, it nearly brings tears to her eyes.

“That’s my brother Liam.” Killian turns towards her, and when he goes on, his voice is quiet and small. “We should go sit down now.”

His hand hovers just above Emma’s elbow without touching her, and as she walks back to the sofa, it feels like she might break.

-/-

Somewhere on the outskirts of Storybrooke, a tall man with dirty blond hair shoulders a rifle and locks his front door. It’s a gorgeous full moon and razorbacks have been spotted in the area, clever and nocturnal and delicious.

He checks his gear carefully and then disappears into the forest behind his house, silent as a whisper in the trees. They don’t call him the Huntsman for nothing.

And tonight he’s going to get himself a boar.

-/-

“Why don’t you go to sleep,” Elsa says. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”

They have spent over an hour telling Elsa about Emma's case and Killian looks ready to collapse. He keeps rubbing his hand over his face and stifling his yawns.

“She heard wind,” Killian says, ignoring the suggestion. “Howling, like wind. And a heartbeat. And the language is different this time. The script is still Ogham, but the words are almost---”  
“Killian.” Elsa’s voice is soft but decisive, and his shoulders slump. He looks empty and drained and it makes Emma ache.

“We can talk it over in the morning,” Elsa goes on. “When you’ve had a few hours’ rest.”

Killian looks at Emma. “How are _you_ not bloody knackered? After the day you’ve had?”

“I am tired.” Emma has to stifle her own yawn. “But I slept while you drove here, remember? At least three hours.”

Killian nods and Elsa gets up. “You can have the spare room, Emma, Killian can take the study.” She turns to him. “Unless you want to go home?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not driving to Southie just to come right back in the morning. But I’ll take the couch.”

“There’s no reason for you to----”

“I’m not taking the study.” His voice is sharp now, cutting and trenchant, and Elsa almost wilts.

“I’ll take the study,” Emma says. “This couch is way too small for you.”

Killian gives her a grateful smile and then turns, remorse plain on his features. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, but Elsa waves him off.

He gets up slowly.

“I _am_ sorry,” he repeats, and Elsa nods, not looking at him, and then he adds, “thank you, love. I’ll find my own way.” 

He slinks out of the living room like a beaten dog, and Elsa takes several deep breaths before she looks back at Emma.

“You can just---” 

“What happened?” It’s out before Emma can stop herself. But she can’t back away either. “Please. Can you tell me what happened to him?”

Elsa’s eyes narrow and she looks Emma up and down, and finally she shakes her head.

“Yes, sheriff.” She sighs. “I guess somebody should.”

-/-

The muted buzzing is not enough to pull Mary Margaret from her sleep at first. It goes on for almost ten minutes before she separates dream from reality and slowly opens her eyes.

Her bedroom is pitch dark, the clock says after midnight, and then the buzzing comes again.

She stumbles over to her backpack, which is on a chair, well-camouflaged by several shirts and sweaters, and pulls out her phone.

The buzzing stops.

She checks.

She has had 23 calls from Graham Humbert in those last ten minutes.

Twenty-three.

When she calls back, it goes straight to voicemail.

-/-

Emma takes a sip of her coffee and waits. Elsa’s eyes wander the picture walls, but in the end they settle on her.

“How much do you know?” Her voice is soft, but steady.

Emma shrugs. “Not much. I know he’s had a similar case. One with cards and cryptic messages and homicide. He was part of a task force that tried to run down the culprit and there were casualties. And then the murders stopped.”

“Well,” Elsa picks up her own cup. “You’re right. You don’t know jack.” She leans back, drinks, and when she goes on, her voice is quiet.

“Killian was a professor of ancient languages at Oxford when they started the task force.”

Emma chokes on her coffee. 

When she can breathe again, she says, “Killian was _what?_ ”

Elsa smiles. “He has a doctorate in ancient history.”

“Of course he does.” Emma has never packed this much sarcasm into a single sentence, and Elsa actually laughs.  
“He’s a very smart man.” It sounds like she’s proud of him.

“But--- how on earth did he get a consult on a random case half a world away?”

Elsa’s smile falls. “His brother Liam brought him in. You see--” she has to clear her throat-- “Liam initially was on loan to the Boston PD from Interpol, tracking a serial killer who’d surfaced in Massachusetts. I was the psychologist assigned to the case, that’s how we met.” She smiles, wistfully. “Liam never went back to England. We got married and he became a Boston detective, and we found this crazy house and talked about---”

She stops, suddenly, takes a deep breath.

“Anyway, one day a missing persons case surfaces with a note left at the scene, strange symbols, written in blood. The missing person turns up dead and Liam gets the case, takes one look at the note and calls Killian. You see - Liam had a hunch it was actual writing, not random symbols. And he was right.”

Emma feels something heavy start to weigh down her chest.

“Killian immediately identifies the script as Ogham---”

Emma’s breath catches. “Is that what Killian mentioned earlier? This—this is a real language? With a _name_?”

Elsa nods. “It’s a real alphabet. Apparently the language the letters are used _for_ is the question. But he can tell you all about this tomorrow, I don’t really understand it. Not like he does.”

Emma bites down hard on the dozens of questions demanding to be asked, and nods for Elsa to go on.

“I’ll leave the particulars of the case to Killian. I can’t----” She takes a deep breath. “It killed my husband. And a lovely, decent man named Will Scarlet. It nearly drove a third detective insane.”

“August Booth?” Emma’s voice is a whisper.

Elsa nods again, eyes large and sad. “Yes. August disappeared when the killings stopped. From what I understand he’s busy diving to the bottom of every bottle he can find.”

Emma can hardly breathe. The weight on her chest is so heavy.

Elsa clears her throat. “Killian left Oxford when Liam was killed. Left his entire life behind. It cost him his tenure and his reputation and everything he’d ever worked for. I begged him to go back, to not ruin his life, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He got special dispensation and went to the academy and now he’s a homicide detective himself. I think he works on the case in his spare time. His former colleagues at Oxford probably think he’s dead.” She blinks, looks away. “It’s like he’s trying to make amends - for what I don’t know. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

She is silent for a long moment.

“Killian has lost--- has lost more---” Elsa’s voice finally breaks and when she looks at Emma, her eyes are full of tears. “Please be careful with him.”

The first drops start to roll down Elsa’s cheeks and Emma leans forward to take her hand and----

The howling and the heartbeat and the red bursts of light _explode_ all around her, the air cracks and there’s a keening scream that isn’t human at all, and----

“ _Emma!_ ”

Elsa is kneeling before her, staring, and Emma is mortified.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “So sorry. It’s fine, I’m fine.”

Elsa scans her like a laser and her eyes narrow. “You’re most certainly not fine. Is this what you were talking about earlier?”

Emma can’t speak, only nod. None of this is real.

“Fuck.” In Elsa’s gentle voice the expletive sounds like a gunshot. “Oh, Emma.”

She takes Emma’s hand again, but this time nothing happens. 

Emma can’t move. Her brain is not working. 

Elsa pats her hand. “It’s time for bed. It’s late, and you’re exhausted. I’m sorry if I frightened you. Everything else can wait until morning, I promise.” She gets up slowly. “Please don’t worry about anything until tomorrow, OK? The study is just upstairs, and---”

“Is it OK if I just stay here? On the couch?” Emma doesn’t want to lie down in a bed in this strange house of sadness, with these people, these _conduits_ to whatever the fuck; she doesn’t want to let down her guard and really sleep. Staying on the couch in her clothes for a nap is as much as she’s willing to concede. It’s a miracle she hasn’t run screaming yet.

Elsa doesn’t argue. “If you prefer, of course.” She points to a small wooden chest. “There are blankets in there. Do you need pillows?”

Emma just shakes her head and then watches Elsa leave the room. Some of the crushing weight on Emma’s chest leaves with her.

-/-

She’s standing on top of the flat roof of a very tall building, tall enough for the wind to howl around it, howl in her ears, in her soul, in the marrow of her bones, and he holds her hand,

as she tries to conjure up the spark, but nothing happens--

as clouds gather

as the sky goes dark

as he looks at her with those blue eyes full of warmth and promise and _It’sAllRightLove_ , _YouCanDoThis_ , and oh, the way he believes in her, but---

Nothing happens.

The howling gets louder, the wind screams, the air stings, and no spark comes

no spark

and he says, _Don’tBeAfraid_

looks at her with eyes full of---

eyes full of---

Lightning strikes like the _crack_ of a whip, rips his hand from hers, throws him backwards, and he stumbles

and he stumbles

tries to hold on to the edge, but his fingers miss,

she can see it

she can see him

and then he

falls

Emma bolts upright and screams.

Panting, she looks at unfamiliar surroundings, eerie and silent in the first grey of dawn. There are walls full of picture frames and a bay window in front of her, and she’s twisted into her blanket, her heart racing, cold sweat on her forehead.

The previous day filters back slowly, and she wipes her face on her shirtsleeve as she remembers where she is and why. The silence is deafening.

Emma gets up, wraps her blanket around her and walks over to the window. She can just make out a backyard, a bit of lawn, a flagstone terrace with a solitary patio chair and a small barbecue. It may be the saddest sight she’s ever seen.

“Are you all right?”

His voice is a whisper behind her and she whips around, and there he is, in the flesh-- solid and real and alive, and tears spring to her eyes.

“Emma?”

He walks up to her, looks at her with his brow furrowed and his eyes worried. She blinks back water and tries to smile.

“I’m fine.”

“I thought I heard--- something.” He shakes his head. “And you don’t look--- you don’t look like you’re fine.”

“It was nothing.” _Don’tThinkDon’tThinkDon’tThink._

“What are you doing up?”

Emma shudders and pulls the blanket more tightly around herself and looks at Killian. Tries to find the young man from the picture, the picture taken at Cambridge, with his brother, when the world was still his for the taking. He is buried now, that man, underneath layers of grief and anguish and bitterness.

She realizes suddenly that she has been silent for a long time now, just studying his face, and that he let her.

The left corner of his mouth quirks up as she becomes aware of his own scrutiny, and he quietly asks, “Elsa told you? About the case? About Liam?”

“She gave me the basics.” Emma whispers. “I’m just--- I’m so sorry.”

Killian laughs, and it’s the sound of heartache and misery. 

“He was a prat, Liam was,” he says, his voice unsteady. “Raised me after our parents died, knew everything better. Had done everything, seen everything, tried everything. Had _opinions_ on everything. God, he was insufferable.”

“You miss him.” For the third time now Emma finds herself saying something before she can stop it. She really has to get a better handle on this.

But then she looks up.

He’s close, close enough that she can see the purple shadows under his eyes and the way he bites his lip, and then his hand comes up to cup her shoulder, and---

Warmth floods her, pure and lovely and wonderful, and it feels like hope, like a promise, like courage and energy, and he looks at her, blue eyes calm and steadfast, and nods.

“We’ll get through this, I promise,” he says, and it feels like an oath. “I promise you, Emma Swan, we will prevail. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She nods back at him, because there is nothing she can say to this, nothing at all, and he takes his hand off her shoulder. 

The warmth dissipates in an instant.

Emma shivers, hard, and he just smiles and opens his arms, and she takes a step forward, this one, small step forward,

lets him wrap his arms around her and breathes a sigh of relief, because he’s

solid

and real

and alive

and that’s all that matters, as they both stand at the window and watch the sun come up.


	5. Chapter 5

  
  
  


The pounding is unforgivably loud for the early hour of the day, and David is absolutely indignant about it right up until the moment he opens his door.

Mary Margaret Blanchard is on the other side, and her facial expression redefines  _ upset _ .

“Deputy,” she says, out of breath and holding back tears, “please Deputy, I think something bad happened. I can’t get a hold of him, and his tracks just  _ stopped _ .”

She holds up her cell as if it explains everything. Her eyes are wide and the hand holding her phone is shaking. David opens the door to invite her in and realizes with the sudden clarity of supreme embarrassment that he is wearing pajamas, proper blue pajamas with white piping, and he feels mortified for a fraction of a second, before looking at Mary Margaret’s eyes again.

The woman before him is not prone to panic nor hysterics, and yet she is in the throes of both. This is not the time for bashfulness. Even if a small, minuscule part of his brain wishes she had not seen him in sleep clothes befitting his grandfather.

“Please come in,” he says gently, and motions down the hallway. “Kitchen’s right this way. Let me put some clothes on and then you can tell me everything, OK?” 

Mary Margaret nods. It looks numb. She doesn’t move.

“Ms Blanchard?” David lightly touches her elbow. “Can you go and wait in the kitchen for me?”

At that she finally looks at him, truly sees him for the first time since she got here. 

“Yes. Sorry. Yes, I can.” She quirks a wan grin. “And I thought I told you to call me Mary Margaret.”

  
  


-/-

  
  


They haven’t spoken in minutes, many long minutes, and Killian just stands there with his arms around Emma. She is warm, and her breathing is relaxed and even, and it’s all he can do to stop his mind from racing down every single awful path of premonition and just stay in the moment. He’s terrified and warm and safe at the same time and his mind balks at the contradiction, fight or flight knocking at the edges of his consciousness, but he stays still and listens to her breathe.

It’s his first peaceful moment in forever.

The sound of a door opening somewhere upstairs makes them both straighten up and move apart slowly. By the time Elsa enters the room, there are three feet between them and a sense of loss that remains.

“You guys sleep OK?” Elsa twists her hair up and doesn’t wait for an answer. “Want some breakfast?”

They follow her into the kitchen.

It’s bright and welcoming even in the flat November morning sunshine, and he looks at Emma as she sits down at the table, with just her t-shirt and her hair all tousled, smiling gratefully at Elsa as she takes a proffered mug and the smell of coffee in the air, and he  _ can’t _ .

“We can’t do this here.” His voice is sharp, and he doesn’t care. “We have to go to my place.”

He can’t sit here in this lovely kitchen with the sunlight and the toasting English muffins, can’t do this in this house of sadness next to the pictures of Liam and laughter and happier days, can’t talk about Evil while drinking Elsa’s premium roast, because he’s absolutely terrified and he is T minus 5 for a meltdown.   
They have to leave. Have to.

Elsa’s mouth opens in protest and he cuts her off. 

“There are things I have to show Emma. From the last case. Your explanations won’t make any sense otherwise.”

Elsa quirks a supremely sarcastic eyebrow. “Like they were going to make much sense either way.” 

“She needs context.”

Elsa gives him a long, sharp, figuring look, and finally turns to Emma, who has been watching them in silence. 

“Do you want to take a shower first? Get out of these clothes? You can borrow some of mine.”

Emma nods.

Killian breathes a sigh of relief.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  


“Graham is missing.”

David has just put on clothes and Mary Margaret has somehow managed to have two steaming cups of strong black tea ready in the short time it took him to do so. Her hands are unsteady as she hands him one cup, and he has to stop himself from reaching for her.

That’s not professional.

Instead he sits down at his kitchen table with her and pulls out a notepad and pen. “Graham? Graham Humbert?”

She nods.

“What makes you think he’s missing?”

Mary Margaret’s eyes harden like flint at  _ What makes you think _ , but her voice stays even. She has incredible self-control.

“I got 23 calls from Graham. 23 calls in the space of just over 10 minutes. That’s a call every 30 seconds.”

David notices the back of his neck get hot. 

“Does he---” he clears his throat-- “does he call you often?”

Mary Margaret gives him a full-body eyeroll that lets David know  _ exactly _ what she thinks of this sudden surfacing of misplaced jealousy and says, “Have you ever hit redial every 30 seconds for 10 minutes?  _ Ever _ ?”

David can feel an atomic-heat blush start to creep up his neck and shakes his head no.

“Well then,  _ Deputy _ \---” oh, the superiority that woman can pack into a single word--- “in that case I’m thinking Graham had a very urgent reason to do so.”

She has a point.

David is now wondering why Mary Margaret never went for law enforcement.   
He’s also thinking that whatever grade she teaches must bring forth the most well-behaved and comprehensively educated children in the county. At least.

“True,” he says. “His reason must have been compelling. However---” David makes a note to do the most thorough background check he’s ever done on Graham Humbert--- “I still don’t know why you think he’s missing.”

“He’s not at home,” Mary Margaret says, point blank. “I missed his calls, all of them, because I was asleep. I called him back several times and got his voicemail each time. So I went to his house. I know where he keeps his spare key.”

David bites down hard on ‘ _ oh you do, do you _ ’ and nods. “Go on.”

“His house is empty and his bed has not been slept in. His rifle and hunting pack were gone.”

“Isn’t it much more likely that he’s actually on a hunt? That he’s out somewhere with no cell reception and just hasn’t come back yet?”

Mary Margaret shakes her head, but both her superiority and her impatience have vanished and made way for worry. Very real, genuine worry. David forbids himself to react.

“I thought that too, at first.” Her voice sounds small now, and not at all like the formidable woman she was just moments ago. “But it was so strange. He never calls, unless it’s about community business---” David isn’t relieved by this,  _ not at all _ \--- “and he very rarely hunts at night. None of us are really night hunters - we don’t have that many nocturnals worth hunting in the area, and it requires a lot more skill and a lot more equipment. Just--- boar, occasionally. But that’s what I thought at first, you know? Razorbacks have been spotted and Graham loves them in stew.”

She takes a deep breath and looks at David, and he can see panic in her eyes now. It’s kept on a tight rein, but it’s there.

He puts down his notepad and tries to make his voice gentle. “But--- you don’t think that’s what it is?”

Mary Margaret shakes her head. “I followed his tracks. From the house. I had to---- I don’t know what I was thinking. I wanted to see for myself.”

Fear - real, palpable, genuine fear starts to pool in David’s stomach and without thinking he takes her hand. It’s cold. 

“It was hard going - he’s a skilled hunter and it was pitch dark, although I do have a really good flashlight.”

He smiles a wan smile.

“His tracks zigzagged a bit, but eventually they headed to the watering spot at the river. By the bridge.”

David’s breath stops.

It cannot be.

Mary Margaret nods slowly, and looks up at David, tears in her eyes. “His tracks go all the way down the hill, and then---” she takes a deep breath that sounds more like a sob--- “then they just--- disappear.”

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


As the three of them climb the stairs to his apartment, Emma can hear Killian breathing much harder than he should going up a few flights. She remembers just how tired he’s looked ever since he showed up at her crime scene, remembers that she herself woke him up to get answers not 24 hours ago.

Was it really just yesterday morning that she knocked on his door?

The building is run-down and ugly. There is marker graffiti on the walls, spaced around cracks and chipped paint and splintered bannisters. The stairwell bulbs are flickering neon, the steps creaky and uneven. Killian pulls open the door to the 3rd story corridor and finally stops in front of a door with four deadbolts that doesn’t quite fit its frame. There’s an actual gap above the top hinge.

Emma shudders.

This is not safe, not at all.

Killian turns around and looks at her. “My place is not exactly---”

He huffs and tries again.

“I don’t do a lot of entertaining,” he says, and his attempt at self-deprecating humor makes Emma ache. He smiles, but it’s small and apologetic. “Anyway, I’m really sorry for the mess.”

She nods and tries to look reassuring, but he’s already turned back to the door, unlocking the deadbolts.

Then they enter and Killian flicks on the light and Emma’s breath catches.

She can hear Elsa behind her gasp.

It’s only one room, with a small kitchenette in the far left corner and a mattress in the far right. At the center of the room is a ratty couch with a leaning coffee table covered in empty bottles, 

Empty liquor bottles.   
Rum, from the looks of it.

There’s brown shag carpeting, and a small TV on top of a milk crate, and a stack of empty pizza boxes next to a side door which Emma assumes must lead to the bathroom.

There is not one personal item anywhere. The room is utterly transient. It is not a home, it is merely a place to stay.

But that is not what has made their breath catch, hers and Elsa’s.

The side wall looks like it’s straight from the set of a serial killer movie. It is full of newspaper clippings and post-its and photos, notes and explanations and printouts.

On the floor before it are almost a dozen cardboard file boxes, some open, some stacked. File folders are everywhere.

Everywhere.

Emma counts no less than three notepads, filled with neat, tightly-spaced writing.

Behind her Elsa exhales slowly. 

“Killian.” It’s a whisper. “Oh, Killian. You should have told me.”

He turns and looks at her and Emma’s heart constricts.

“There was nothing to tell,” he says, and it sounds final. 

Then he looks at Emma. “Come sit down,” he says and points at the couch. “This is not going to be easy to hear.”

Emma sits down on the couch and the springs dig into her backside. No one could possibly get any rest or relaxation on this instrument of torture. 

Killian in turn plucks a few photocopies off the wall and hands them to her. They are notecards, the by-now familiar symbols, smeared in places. The smears are eerie and ominous, even in black and white.

“Are these from your case? From before?” 

He nods.

She can practically see the rusted red of the originals. “They look the same? Like-- they’re the same symbols?”

He nods again. “They are. It’s a script called Ogham - a very early alphabet which originated in Ireland. There is some dispute over its inception, but there is compelling evidence that it originated within the 1st century BC.”

Emma looks down at the photocopies in her hands. “So this is Irish?”

“No.” His posture changes, becomes straighter and yet more relaxed somehow. “The alphabet used on the cards originated in Ireland. The language did not.” 

The lines on his face smooth out, his features become animated, his voice utterly self-assured. He knows this.

Knows it, and  _ loves  _ it.

“There are far fewer writing systems than there are languages, because many languages use similar alphabets, or variants thereof. For example, French and English and German and Spanish and Dutch and about a hundred others use the Latin alphabet. There are dozens of countries using variants of Cyrillic, and a dozen more using variants of Arabic. This of course is a broad generalization. It’s a lot more complicated than that, and I’d be happy to explain this in detail some other time.”

His eyes are shining, his hands in constant motion, gestures punctuating each of his points. He looks like a completely different person.

Here,  _ here _ is the man from the photograph.

“Now, the thing about Ogham is that it’s  _ phonetic _ ,” he goes on. “Which means it can be adapted to any language that uses the same or similar enough phonemes. It wouldn't suit tonal languages or ones that had very different phonetic structures, but---”

Elsa clears her throat, and he looks up in surprise. Like he just now realizes where he is.   
“Sorry. Got a bit technical.” His right hand comes up to scratch behind his ear, and it’s ridiculously endearing. Then he looks at Emma. “What?”

Emma smiles at him. 

“It’s just---” She shakes her head, still smiling. “Elsa said you were a professor at Oxford, but I couldn’t picture it until just now.”

  
  
  


.

  
  
  


If there were any justice in this world, this sentence would not hurt as much as it does.

There is no justice in this world. It feels like a knife to his heart. 

“That was a long time ago,” he says, and his voice is harsh and cutting as he turns away. From out of the corner of his eyes he can see her smile fall.

He walks over to the kitchen and pulls a bottle of rum from a cabinet, never mind the fact that it’s not even noon yet. He takes two long sips, and a third one, and then walks back to the couch.

Emma is staring at the papers in her hand. She doesn’t look up and doesn’t say a word, and that hurts, too, with a dull, aching pain he hasn’t felt in forever.

Doesn’t want to feel.

He almost walks back to the kitchen to get the bottle, but Elsa fixes him with a gaze that could have melted steel, and so he clears his throat instead.

“It doesn’t matter,” he finally says, and he’s not sure himself to what he is referring. “Anyway, I never did figure out what the actual language was. I tried transcribing it phonetically, but couldn’t place it at all, couldn’t match it to anything I’d studied or encountered, and I was still trying to consult with my colleagues when---”

He can’t say it.   
He can’t think it.   
He can’t look at Elsa.

This time he does go to take another pull from the bottle on the kitchen counter. When he walks back, he keeps his eyes glued to the shag carpet.

“This new case, your case,” he vaguely motions in Emma’s direction, “it’s different. I think this is a language I know. I think it’s related to Manx.” He rubs his eyes. “It’s not exactly the same, there are vital differences, but it’s close enough. Close enough that I think I can figure out---”

He stops himself and finally looks up.

Emma is staring at him, wide-eyed. She looks almost shell shocked.

“I can explain that later.” He tries to soften his voice. It comes out gruff instead. “But I think that nobody has ever actually encountered either language.  _ Ever _ . I’m not sure it’s--”

Emma blinks, and Elsa shifts in her seat.

God, he doesn’t want to do this next part.

“Look, Emma.” He crouches down before her. “This is all important information, but it’s not why we’re here.”

He looks at Elsa, who nods.

“We want to tell you why you’re having these--- visions.”

“Because I’m going insane?” Emma bursts a short laugh, harsh and joyless. “Because my whole life has become a fucking exhibit of the absurd? What with the dead languages and the dead  _ bodies _ and the runes written in goddamn blood? Why wouldn’t I have visions, too? I mean - isn’t it high time I lost my mind?”

“Not at all.” Elsa leans forward and puts her hand on Emma’s. “You are not going crazy, that I promise you. The reason for all this, the reason you’re having visions is as simple as it is hard to believe.”

Emma looks up and Elsa nods.

“It’s magic, of course.”

  
  


-/-

  
  


The coffee at the station is bitter and thin and David wishes he’d thought to stop at Granny’s along the way. Then he looks at Mary Margaret’s anxious face, at the way she is holding herself together, and is glad they came straight here to make an official report.

He waves at the pot. “I’d offer you a cup, but I think this qualifies as torture.”

The left corner of her mouth ticks up, like she appreciates his efforts, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

David pulls up the form for missing persons and Graham’s records and inputs all the bits and pieces he already knows. Graham’s middle name is Chase.  _ Chase. _

When he gets to the part where Mary Margaret’s story arrives at the bridge, he stops and closes his eyes for a moment.

“So,” he finally says, trying for calm. “Tell me exactly what you mean by ‘his tracks disappeared’.”

She looks at him as if she wants to look exasperated but can’t, because she’s simply too scared.

“Exactly what I said,” she grinds out. “There are very clear tracks leading down to the bridge. In order to hunt that watering spot, you have to cross the bridge, go in a wide circle, and approach again from the rear. Unless you want to wade the river, and in November, you don’t want to wade the river, even if you  _ had  _ waders. Especially not at night. And Graham didn’t have waders. He hated fishing. He hated water.”

David files this away for later, and doesn’t interrupt. Mary Margaret’s eyes are fixed somewhere in the middle distance, and her hands are clutched together so tightly that her knuckles have turned white, but her voice is steady.

“Anyway, this is part of the reason I was able to track him at all, seeing as he’s an excellent hunter who doesn’t exactly trample a freeway through the woods---” she looks at him pointedly and he shrugs--- “and it was dark. But it was highly probable that he was headed for the bridge, and so I did the same. It’s the only one in a 20-mile radius.”

Her voice trails off and he waits. It takes Mary Margaret almost a minute to go on. When she does, her voice is low and apprehensive.

“I told you there were clear tracks down that hill, going to the bridge. It’s true, there were. Are.” She stops, shakes her head. “There  _ are _ clear tracks. The reason they are clear, is that they were made by someone who no longer sought to avoid sign. Who was not being careful, didn’t watch where he was going.” She takes a deep breath. “Someone who was most likely running. Running very,  _ very  _ fast.” 

Her gaze focuses on David. Her eyes are burning. “They’ll tell you that you can tell running tracks from walking ones by indentation, which is mostly  _ bullshit _ . There are so many factors - surface density and type of shoe, type of sole worn, and that’s not even counting body type and individual movement. But---” another deep breath--- “Graham  _ was _ running. I’d bet my life on it. There’s almost no heel, it’s all toeprints right down to the bridge, and they’re  _ very _ far apart. I tried to match his stride and I was short nearly a foot.”

Her brows furrow. 

“Don’t say it. I  _ know _ I’m a lot shorter.”

David nods. She doesn’t look shorter at the moment. 

“So anyway,” her voice drops down to low and careful again, and her eyes drift back to the wall. “I followed the tracks to the bridge, and then of course lost them, because it’s made of steel. But here’s the thing. They do not pick up on the other side. I looked for an hour.”

The cold fear inside David starts to pool again in the pit of his stomach. Mary Margaret spent hours,  _ hours _ , in those woods by herself.

In the dark.

Alone.

“There was nothing. Then I went back and noticed that the tracks don’t actually go all the way  _ to _ the bridge. They stop a good ten feet before it. Much farther than Graham could have leapt, even when running for his life.” Her hands clench together even harder. “And he  _ was  _ running for his life. I know he was.”

She falls silent, her eyes blank, her knuckles white.    
David leans forward and gently puts his hand on top of hers.

She snaps back to the present and looks at him, her eyes still full of tears, but none of them fall.

“I know he was,” she whispers.

“I believe you,” he says. “It’s daylight now, so we can go to Granny’s, get a cup of real coffee, and go back out there and you can show me everything.”

She nods, and the first few drops roll down her cheeks. She wipes them away angrily with her left hand. Her right stays in David’s. It’s warm now.

“But you have to promise me something,” he goes on, and waits until she looks at him. “Promise me you won’t go out by yourself again. Not anywhere near that bridge. Not at night.”

Her brow furrows.

“ _ Promise  _ me. Promise you won’t. I am not above locking you up. You can spend every night in this cell from now on if you don’t.”

At that she laughs, actually laughs, and it sounds oh so lovely.

“OK Deputy,” she says. “I promise.”

“Swear,” he says. He can’t help himself. The thought of her missing is--- he can’t.

“I swear,” she says solemnly, with just a hint of a twinkle in her eyes. “I swear on your grandpa pajamas. Which were really cool by the way.”

And then she laughs out loud again.

He will never get tired of that sound. Even if he now has to go and buy all new sleepwear.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  
  


“You can’t be serious. There is no such thing as magic.”

Emma makes a move to get up and he reaches for her wrist. Right before his hand touches her skin Emma yanks her arm out of reach, and Elsa leans forward.

“It’s OK,” she says as he looks at Emma, her eyes huge and apprehensive, and he just wants her to not be afraid of him.

“It’s OK,” Elsa repeats. “Tell me what happens when you guys touch.”

Emma clears her throat. Her hands are folded together, pulled back, against her chest. It’s a study in defense. Pressed into the corner of his ancient couch, wearing Elsa’s borrowed clothes, she looks more fragile, less solid somehow. She also looks tired and suspicious and not a little angry, and he can’t blame her. It’s going to be a lot to take in.   
And she probably won’t believe them anyway.

When she looks back up at him he tries to nod reassuringly, but he’s exhausted. Like he could sleep for the rest of his life and it would not be enough.

He sits down on the floor in front of her and doesn’t go get his bottle of rum.

  
  


“It’s not always the same,” she finally says. “The first few times there was this heartbeat that wasn’t mine, fast and irregular. And this weird howling that’s not human. And my vision kind of goes out, there’s just blackness with red sparks.”

“You never told me that!” It sounds much too accusatory. Emma’s head snaps around, and she looks disconcerted, and he makes an effort to soften his tone. “Sorry. It’s just - you never told me it affected your perception.”

“It’s never very long.” She shrugs. 

Elsa’s eyes narrow. “Is this what happened last night as well? All of it?”

Emma nods. “It was really strong, too. Loud.”

“Anything else?”

Emma nods again. “It’s not always like that. I mean--- twice when I...” Her voice trails off, and she looks at Killian. “Twice when we---” her hand waves in his general direction--- “it was just--- ”

“Lovely.” He just blurts it out, and Emma bites her lip. 

“Yeah.” Her voice is so low he can barely hear it. “Sort of safe and warm and---” she shrugs-- “yeah. Lovely.”

She takes a deep breath, and Killian gets the distinct feeling she’s about to say something important, but instead she exhales and shakes her head.

Then her entire bearing changes. She sits up ramrod straight, shoulders pulled back, eyebrows pinched, and her voice turns to steel. “Don’t tell me this is fucking magic.” Her voice is hard now. “That’s not just crazy, that’s impossible.”

He looks at her. The stiff posture, the clenched jaw - but somehow she doesn’t sound nearly as affronted as she should, given the topic at hand. She sounds like she  _ thinks  _ she should sound incredulous and doubtful and condescending. 

Elsa smiles, unruffled. “You don’t think magic exists?”

“Of  _ course  _ it doesn’t exist.”

There it is again. Emma’s voice, hitting every note in the required symphony of indignance, but---

“You think thousands of years of oral and written history and hundreds of different kinds and types and practices, through every time period, every continent, every tribe and nation were all made up?”

He watches Emma’s face turn thoughtful.

“You think somehow everyone across time and space just came up with magic? By themselves? All of them?”

“Legends and fairy tales and superstitions sprang up across time and distance and tribes all over the globe, and are remarkably similar.” She looks hard at Elsa. “So that argument’s not going to fly and you know it.” 

Killian can’t help it, he has to smile. She’s so smart, and just so--- 

He can’t find the right word, not even in the privacy of his own mind, and the smile hurts his cheeks.

“Magic is just something people needed to invent in order to explain the laws of physics. Or to hold on to something.” Emma looks at Elsa, her voice sharp, accusatory. “And I’m positive it has nothing at all whatsoever to do with the fact that I’m losing my mind and hearing heartbeats and seeing sparks and---”

She cuts herself off abruptly. She turns and her eyes meet Killian’s, her expression unreadable. Her eyes grow soft and then narrow and become pure flint. She slumps only to straighten again, and then slump once more, and she looks in turns resigned, scornful, and crushed. There is a war waging inside her head, that much is clear, and he watches her eyes fill with tears twice, watches her wipe them in anger and frustration, watches her shudder and open her mouth several times only to close it again. 

He wishes he knew what to say.

Wishes he could take her hand.

Then Emma looks up. “There are a million reasons why I should tell you both that you’re crazy. Why I should get up right now and leave and make sure I never see either one of you again.” 

She bites her lip hard, and his hand is halfway to her mouth before he can stop himself and divert it to run through his hair.

“I should walk out of here right now.” Emma’s voice is a whisper. “I should get a restraining order for the both of you.” She points at his wall, and he cringes. “ _ Definitely  _ for you, Killian.”

She closes her eyes. “Except that----”

Her voice drifts off and there is silence for a long, long moment.

Killian can hear his heart beat. 

Wonders if Emma can hear it. Wonders if his is the heartbeat she keeps hearing.   
Hoping it is.

“Hypothetically,” Emma finally says, opening her eyes to look at Elsa, “if it  _ were _ magic - what made you….” She grimaces, starts again. “What--- how do you know what’s happening to me? And why do you think it’s magic?”

Elsa’s face twists and even though he knew this was coming, Killian feels a sharp stab of pain. It is the pain of memories unburied, and of having to watch Elsa’s face as she gets ready to answer.

Having to watch Emma start down the same path of ruin and destruction.

He just wants it all to be over.

“It happened to me,” Elsa says. Her voice is quiet and yet it cuts to the bone. “The first time this thing ran around killing people, Liam brought copies of the notecards home to study, and I kept hearing a humming buzz. And then one day we met at the station and he showed me the originals. And I heard a howling voice and saw black with red sparks.” She shudders and Killian would have given anything in that moment to not have to listen.   
To not have to be here.

To spare Elsa from having to relive it.

To spare Emma from what’s coming her way.

He leans forward and takes Emma’s hand, and she lets him. Warmth spreads in his chest, warmth and a feeling of calm, and it tethers him, doesn’t let him fall into the abyss of despair where he lives most of his days. He’s unspeakably grateful for it.

“No heartbeat though,” Elsa’s voice severs the calm. “That’s new.”

Emma shivers and he squeezes her fingers until it stops. Her voice is a whisper. “Why magic, though? How did you-- why do you think it was magic?”

“It told me.” Elsa’s voice is low and infinitely sad. “When it came for my husband, it told me. The red sparks exploded and the howling turned into a voice and it told me to unleash my magic or it would take Liam.” 

Tears start to roll down Elsa’s face, but she doesn’t move.

Doesn’t speak for minutes, just sits there, head bowed, tears dripping freely. Despair rolls off her in waves, and Killian is about to tell her to stop, to not finish the story, when she looks up again.

“It told me it needed  _ my magic _ .” Elsa’s voice is a hiss now, angry.  _ Furious _ . “I didn’t know what it was talking about. You think howling heartbeats are hard to take? Try being spoken to by the voice in your head, and then have that voice tell you it needs your fucking magic.  _ Your magic _ . Like I have magic.”

Elsa is nearly vibrating with rage, and Emma just sits there, spellbound.

“It said it was here for my power. My  _ power _ .” Elsa laughs. It sounds terrible. “But whatever power, whatever magic it wanted, I couldn’t----”

She sobs once, and then takes a deep breath.

“I didn’t know,” she whispers. “I didn’t know and I couldn’t do what it asked, and then my husband died and my life----”

Emma’s phone rings, loud and hard and unforgiving, and she flinches hard. She pulls it out, but does not let go of Killian’s hand, squeezes his fingers to the point of pain.

She listens for a minute and finally says, “OK, we’ll be there as soon as we can.” 

Then she puts her other hand on Elsa’s.

He can tell from the way they are looking at each other that neither one is hearing a thing other than the silent humming of the traffic outside.

“I am so sorry.” Emma sounds utterly, heartbreakingly sincere. “So sorry. And I want you to know, I believe you. I do.”

She shrugs and turns to Killian. There are tears in her eyes. “I don’t know what to do with this information, but I believe you both.” Then she shakes her head and gets up. Killian feels the loss of her warm hand like the loss of a limb. 

“I have to go back to Storybrooke,” she says, looking at his wall, at the result of hundreds of hours worth of obsessive investigation. “There’s been another disappearance.” She turns back to him, her face blank. “Killian - are you coming back with me?”

He exhales slowly.

Like that’s a question.

Of course he is.

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all you lovely, wonderful, AMAZING people: Thank you so much for your patience.  
> Seriously.  
> Thank you so very much.

  
  
  


“I’ll drive.”

Killian looks at Emma like she’s grown another head, but she just matches his stare and holds out her hand. She knows he’s exhausted, she knows,  _ knows _ , he got no sleep in that spare bedroom of Elsa’s, and she has a lot to think about.

“Killian,” she repeats, “I’ll drive. You can sleep.” When he just shakes his head she says, “You need to sleep sometime.”

“She’s right.” Elsa gets up and puts on her coat, frowning at Killian, and Emma is grateful to have her support. The man before her strikes her as nothing if not stubborn, particularly in areas of basic human need. “It’s not a shortcoming.” Elsa’s voice hits the bullseye between empathy and sarcasm and Emma wishes she could wrangle tone like this woman. “It’s a condition you share with over 7 billion people. Now get over yourself.”

Killian smiles weakly and rolls his eyes before his brow furrows and he grows very serious.

“Will you be OK, Elsa? How are you getting home?”

“We have a really good public transportation system. Which you know, because you live here.”

Killian scowls and Elsa glares right back at him. They stand off for several long moments before Elsa barks a laugh. 

“Stop fretting, LB,” she says. “I’ll be perfectly fine.” She buttons her coat. “I always am, you know that.”

He sighs. “I do know.”

It’s the easy banter despite the dire circumstances that makes Emma realize just how close they must have been before---

Before.

“LB?” She asks. “Is that a nickname?”

Elsa turns to her, eyes somewhere in the middle distance. “It’s something Liam used to call him, and I guess I just ---”

“Usurped it.” Killian shrugs. “Woman has no respect for her elders.”

“We’re the same age.”

“Then you just have no respect, period.” He turns to Emma, a self-deprecating grin on his face. “It stands for Little Brother. I tried to get Liam to stop calling me that for two decades, but---”

His smile falls.

“Sorry.” Emma doesn’t know what to say. Talking to these two is like walking through a field of landmines. 

“No, don’t be sorry,” Killian’s eyes are soft now, and his voice is low. “It’s--- it’s good to talk about Liam without constantly having to dredge up tragedy. It’s nice. And he  _ was  _ a bit of a wanker.”

“He was a colossal pain in the ass,” Elsa says, wiping her eyes. 

Killian walks over to hug her and Elsa lets him. 

“Such a fucking pain in the ass,” she repeats, muffled by his sweater, and Emma looks at them, looks at him, looks at his face as his eyes search the room and finally land on her and stay in hers and don’t look away.

And she knows she has never ever been looked at like that.

Then Elsa pulls back and breaks the moment. 

“Be careful,” she says, eyes roaming from Killian to Emma and then back again.. “Promise me you’ll be careful.  _ Both  _ of you.”

All Emma can do is nod, all Killian does next to her is nod, and then Elsa leaves.

Without another word.

Emma stares at the door for a long time after she’s gone.

When she finally turns back, Killian is staring at the wall, eyes narrowed, lips a tight line.

“We’ll have to take some of this stuff with us,” he says, motioning at the clippings and the boxes below. “Will you help me take it down?”

He turns to her with his sharp gaze and exhaustion written in every line on his face and Emma just blurts out, “I’m sorry.”

His brow furrows. “Whatever for?”

“I was so mean to you.” 

His brow furrows even more. “Mean to me? You were never mean to me. As I recall it was I who wouldn’t give you the time of day in the begin---”

“In my head.” Emma’s voice has stopped working and she has to clear her throat. “I thought you were-- in the beginning, I thought you were---” She tries to take a deep breath. And can’t. “And then, even after you showed up, and then in Elsa’s house, and all the pictures, and the---”

A sob catches her completely by surprise, but she fights it down with iron resolve.

“I thought you were---- I thought you were---”   
Her throat is tight and hard now, and it’s hard to swallow and impossible to go on. 

Killian walks over to her, slowly, stops only a few inches away. She can feel his closeness like a current.

“You weren’t wrong. You  _ aren’t _ wrong. I am all those things.”

The sob comes back with might and she cannot stop it. Tears spring to her eyes. She can’t breathe right.

He lifts her chin, forces her to look at him.

His eyes are warm, and soft, and god, so tired.

“Emma.” He says. Just that. Nothing else.

“I’m so sorry.” It’s not even a whisper. It’s a mouthing of words.

His thumb very slowly rubs her jawbone. “Don’t be. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

If he hugs her now, she’s sure she’ll break.

He doesn’t. Just cups her cheek and then lets go, mercifully turns back to his boxes and the wall.

“Let’s get this packed up, shall we?” he says quietly, and Emma puts a hand on his arm.

“Thank you,” she whispers, even though she doesn’t know exactly what for. 

The thing about being understood is that it will throw your whole world off-kilter the first time it happens.

_ If  _ it ever does.

He covers her hand with his and the connection goes live in a flash of warmth and something else, something bigger, something  _ greater _ than the sum of their parts, and everything is  _ SafeBlissRelief _ for an eternal moment until they both withdraw their hands.

Their eyes stay locked.

“Did you feel that?” he whispers.

Emma nods, and then blinks and breaks the spell. She  _ can’t _ . It’s not just emotional overload. It feels like she physically cannot uphold this connection, like her muscles and tendons will snap like overextended rubber bands and her neurons will simply stop firing if she spends one more moment inside it.

“We have to get going,” she rasps, and grabs the first box in front of her. After a few moments of tense, silent packing, she adds, “I’ll drive.” 

She straightens up and looks back at him, thumbtack in one hand, a newspaper clipping in the other. 

“You need sleep.” She says firmly. “Promise to try and get some rest on the way?”

He hands her the keys.

.

  
  


He falls asleep almost as soon as they hit I-95 -- just slumps down in his seat, face smushed into the folds of her standard-issue bomber jacket pressed up against the side window, and his breaths become long and even. She pushes down on the accelerator, flies past all the people going 65 on the dot once they see her cruiser, and tries not to notice just how much younger, how much more vulnerable he looks.

She remembers his face back at his apartment when he started to talk about the languages, the way his eyes shone and his features became animated, and she wishes that that person hadn’t been leeched from him by trauma and tragedy until nothing but the shell remained.

He deserves to be that person.

Nothing about this is fair.

She lets her thoughts circle the drain of the hard, cold facts of her present case, and his previous case, and Killian’s demise, so she won’t have to think about the huge, pink, sparkly elephant in the room, holding the magic wand.

Because she’s absolutely not going to think about that.

At all.   
_ EVER. _

  
  
  


-/-

  
  


“Emma’s on her way. She’s bringing the Boston detective back, too.”

“She’s bringing a detective? From out of state? Why?”

David shrugs and tries for nonchalance. “Seems he had a similar case a few years back and has some useful information.”

Mary Margaret laughs out loud and pats his arm.

“Wow. Do you ever not have a poker face, Deputy.”

She’s laughing at him. She’s  _ laughing _ at him, but her cheeks are rosy and her eyes shine, and he can’t be mad at her.

Especially since she happens to be right.

“Admit it. This is bugging the crap out of you.” She quirks a sardonic eyebrow. “Big-city detective on your turf, taking up all of Emma’s attention.”

David starts to nod and only then realizes what Mary Margaret is saying. 

“No!” It comes out much louder than anticipated. “I don’t care that he takes up Emma’s time.” 

She laughs again. “Deputy Nolan, it’s OK. You can be a little pissed off that people are infringing on your territory.”

“ _ You’re _ not infringing,” he mumbles, and then wants to slap his forehead. He has absolutely no game, it turns out. None whatsoever.

She pats his arm again. “Let’s go to Granny’s, OK? I’ll buy you breakfast.”

David looks up and god, it’s just so wonderful the way she smiles at him.

The way her eyes sparkle.

“Don’t you have to teach today?” he asks, and immediately wants to kick himself. He’s literally handing her an excuse to back out of spending time with him.  _ After she suggested it _ . Oh, if self-sabotage were an Olympic sport. 

“It’s fall break,” she says, and he sighs with relief.

“In that case, I would love some real coffee.” He locks the computer screen and gets up. “But you don’t have to buy me breakfast.”   
That gets him a very stern look.    
“Deputy, when I come pounding on your door at five in the morning, the  _ least _ I can do is buy you waffles.”

He can feel another searing hot blush spread hard and fast. “How did you know---”

“I’ve seen you around. It’s interesting how you and I have such similar schedules.”

Surely the current blush has burned off his face by now.   
Surely.

“And you don’t always eat, but when you do, you have waffles.”

The grin she gives him is the biggest and most brilliant and most mortifying thing he’s ever been subjected to.

“Ah, well---”

“So come on, Deputy. Let me buy you some damn breakfast. It’ll be fun, even if we talk about nothing other than your case.”

Yep. His face is clearly melting.

But he pulls himself together.    
“Fine,” he concedes, and if possible, Mary Maragret’s grin becomes even wider. “But on one condition.”

“I already told you I’m payin---”

“You call me David. Just David.”

Oh, her laugh is just his very favorite sound on the planet.   
“OK,” she says. “David it is. Let’s go.”

  
  


-/-

  
  
  


Killian sleeps all the way to the station. When Emma pulls into the parking lot behind the building, it takes her a few moments to bring herself to gently shake his shoulder.

But then she does.

He bolts upright with a strangled scream and looks at her in absolute  _ panic _ . She tries to reassure him with soft words, calm words, but his body twists like a tightly-coiled spring and it’s obvious he doesn’t hear her at all, his breathing hard, his eyes darting everywhere.

Emma bites her lip, hopes for the best - and touches his hand.

Warmth immediately floods into her and he relaxes.

His breathing slows, his eyes focus.

“Emma,” he says, and she nods. “Are we here?”

She nods again. She wants to ask why he was so afraid, but she knows it’s not the time.

There are so many things she wants to ask him.

But the time might not be ever.

She lets go of his hand instead. The warmth dissipates, and reality settles back in. 

“Ready? I think David’s waiting for us with a witness statement.”

He nods and starts to undo his seatbelt.

“See?” He says, not looking at her. “You were right. I am all those things you thought.”

And before she can answer, he gets out of the car.

.

  
  


“So what do you think?” 

Emma’s face is a picture of worry as Killian puts down the report.

“This is the witness statement you took?” He turns to David, who nods.

“Mary Marg--- Ms Blanchard came to see me early this morning.”

Emma leans across to look at the document, and Killian can feel her nearness like a current, before she leans back and her brow furrows. “This says 5:23 AM. You were at the station at 5 AM?”

“No. Uh---” Killian watches David’s Adam's apple do a nervous dance. “She came to my house.”

“She came to your  _ house? _ ”

Killian nearly laughs at the indignation in Emma’s voice. It’s all  _ thou shalt not play with my chew toys _ . Meanwhile David blushes fire engine red again, and Killian feels for the Deputy. It must be awful to navigate life with that kind of tell.

“Look, it’s a small town. Where I live is not exactly top secret,” David says, and it sounds a little annoyed. “I called her yesterday to read the crime scene at the bridge. She’s a really good tracker.” He clears his throat, drops back into professional demeanor. “It was after the scene was cleared. I thought she could help. And she  _ did  _ find lots of useful information. It’s all in my write-up, but I think it’s better if I just show you later.”

There is more to this story, Killian can tell, and it has nothing to do with the crush the deputy quite obviously has on the teacher. There is more to the  _ case _ .

David is a good police officer, that much is clear. Thorough, detail-oriented, meticulous - his report is impeccable. His observations are keen and judicious, yet steer clear of excessive conjecture. His deductions are logical, and more importantly, rational. And he seems to be just the right amount of jaded - enough to not be gullible, not so much as to be indifferent.

Killian himself has never been like that, not as a police officer.

He went in broken. This has not changed.

He hands the report back to Emma. “It doesn’t look good.” 

He wishes he could say something else. But the truth is, Graham Humbert is most likely going to be found soon, dressed in a blood-smeared linen gown, symbols carved on his back, and holding a quill between his frozen fingers.

He looks at David. “You didn’t find any notecards?”

David shakes his head. “Not even at the cabin. We went there on a hunch, and--- nothing.”

“How many days between finding your last victim and Graham’s disappearance?”    
There is a ball of frozen fear at the pit of Killian’s stomach. It’s making him nauseous.

“40 hours,” David says. “Give or take.”

“When you found--- wait.” Killian looks at Emma. “How  _ did  _ you find--- what was the victim’s name again?”

“Leroy,” Emma says slowly. “And I didn’t find him. David called me.”

They both look at David, who has turned very pale.

“Graham called me,” he whispers. “He came upon the body while he was out hunting.”

Silence descends, heavy and suffocating.

Somewhere in the distance, the clock strikes three.

  
  


-/-

  
  


142 miles west of Storybrooke, a tall man with unkempt brown hair and haunted grey eyes stumbles out of a rest stop mini mart and slams a can of beer. He reaches into his backpack and opens another before he looks up at Route 2 stretching before him.

There are only two directions here - the one he came from, and the one he’s going in. He looks at the road for a long time, slowly sipping his beer. It’s Monday afternoon, and there aren’t many cars.

Finally he throws away the second can, crosses the road, and starts to hold out his thumb.

247 miles south a blond man wearing scrubs and a white coat puts his phone back in his pocket and walks over to the nurse’s station.

“I have to leave,” he says. “It’s an emergency. Who can cover for me? I’m done with rounds.”

The nurse looks at him and asks if he’s all right.

He’s definitely not all right.   
But he’s not telling her that.

  
  


And somewhere outside earth’s time and space, a pair of eyes opens and a head perks up.

And then something  _ howls _ .

  
  
  


-/-

  
  


“Are you up for this?”

Killian puts the cruiser in park and looks at Emma.

Emma bristles. “I’m the Sheriff. This is my crime scene. Of course I’m up for it.”

He wishes she sounded less like she was convincing herself.

This is stressful for her, he can feel it.

But he has to see the crime scenes, all of them, in order to get the full picture, and this is where it all began.

Leroy’s last known location.

The cabin is empty and sparsely furnished - just a cot in one corner, a wood-burning stove, and a few rickety chairs. It’s clean and orderly.

The cabin in the crime scene photos he’s holding is a mess of empty food wrappers and drained vodka bottles and yellow caution tape. 

“I had to mark the scene somehow,” Emma says, and cringes, as if she’s embarrassed. “And I don’t exactly have Boston PD resources.”

“This is exceptional work,” he pats her briefly on the shoulder. “Our techs would be hard pressed to do better.”

She laughs like she doesn’t believe him, but wants to.

And it is exceptional work. He looks at the photos in his hand, professional and competent, cataloguing all evidence. 

Emma points to the bottles and the plastic wrappers in the pictures. 

“I finger-printed everything. Every scrap I could get my hands on. And I luma-lighted the entire cabin that night.” 

She points to another set of pictures, marking innocuous-looking spots in daylight, and their blacklight counterparts, which look like Jackson Pollock paintings.

She shrugs. “I’m guessing people come here to ‘relax and unwind’ quite a bit,” she says, miming air quotes. “And it is a hunting cabin. Blood residue is not uncommon, and in fact - most of this  _ is _ blood, not semen. Animal blood mostly, very little human. We tested most of it. The human blood must be from superficial cuts. Leroy was definitely not killed here.”

She shakes her head. “Sorry, conjecture. We don’t know cause of death, yet. He was not---”

Her voice trails off, and Killian looks at her, pale and tense and biting her lip.

“Marked,” he says gently. “He wasn’t marked here. And you’re right. He was not.”

He looks back at the photos. “The cards? Were right around here?”

He points at a spot in the middle of the cabin, and she nods.

Even paler now.

“Emma?”

He doesn’t like the expression on her face, doesn’t like how far away she looks. He takes a step closer.

“Emma?” He repeats. “Are you all right?”

Her head turns to him in slow motion. Her eyes are  _ blank _ .

The cold ball of raw fear in the pit of his stomach expands rapidly outwards, shoots terror through his veins.

“Killian,” she whispers, but she says it as if she doesn’t know what the word means. “Killian, there is---”

Her voice cuts out abruptly, and she tilts her head as if she’s listening to something.

Listening  _ for  _ something.

He takes one more step towards her and reaches out to take her hand, and---

It feels as if he’s the ground for a live wire, like a current running through him, running through them both, connected as they are by touch, and it feels like power, 

pulsating

beating

_ alive _ .

He can’t move, couldn’t if he tried; can’t let go of her hand, and doesn’t want to.

“Killian,” she says again, but he can hardly hear it through the ringing in his ears, “Killian, there is something  _ here _ .”

It’s the last word that gets him, because he can feel it, the presence of  _ something _ , and it galvanizes him into action, into motion--- 

and he picks her up, simply picks Emma up off the floor, crime scene photos still in his hand; crosses the cabin in four long strides and stumbles out the door and down the steps and to the car.

He leans against it, breathing hard.

  
“Killian.”

The voice slowly filters back into his consciousness.

“Please?”

He shakes his head. Slowly opens his eyes.   
Sees Emma’s face, her eyes enormous, and so very close.

“Let me down, Killian. Please.”

He becomes aware that she is still in his iron grip, and he lets go so fast she nearly falls.

Nearly.

“What was that?” He doesn’t want to know. But he has to know. “Is this--- is that what you’ve been--- all this time?”

She shakes her head, her eyes still large and anxious.    
“Not at all,” she says. “This is something completely new.” She shudders, and then looks up. “Wait. Wait a minute. Did--- did you say you felt this? You felt it, too?”

He’s so helpless in the face of all these things he doesn’t understand.

Helpless, and afraid.

  
“I don’t--- I don’t know if it was the same thing. It felt like--- power. Like a current.”

She nods. “There was, there was a hum at first, you know? Kind of like a freeway. Busy, far away. I was trying to listen, and couldn’t quite place it. But I had the distinct feeling it was trying to tell me something. And then---”

She looks down at her empty palms.

“And then you took my hand,” she says. “And it became this flood of energy.”

She balls her hands into fists and looks up again, straight at him.

“Fuck.” Her eyes are burning. “ _ Fuck _ .”

She shrugs. It looks helpless. 

“I wasn’t going to believe Elsa, you know. I mean---” her brows knit together, “I believe that  _ she  _ believed it. I wasn’t sure about you, but I was sure that you were supporting her no matter what. But this---”

She looks up at the sky. There are tears in her eyes, but they do not fall.

“There was something there. I felt it.” Her lip trembles and she bites down hard on it before she continues. “I felt it. All of it. And so did you.  _ Fuck! _ ”

She shakes her head. 

“Now we’re going to have to have a conversation about magic.” She rolls her eyes. “About  _ magic _ . Aren’t we.”

He wraps his hands around her fists and pulls them up to his own racing heart. There is nothing but warmth now, no current, no sound.

“We are,” he says. “We need to talk about that. But Emma--” he waits for her to look at him again.

She finally does, tears still in her eyes.

“It is going to be all right. I promised you that I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. And I won’t.”

He can’t make that promise, and he knows it.   
But he will die trying, if need be.   
This time he will keep that promise.

  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


Emma says nothing the whole way back to town, can’t bring herself to speak at all. Silence is keeping her numb, and numbness is what she desperately needs. She focuses her eyes squarely on a spot of nothing past the windshield and ignores every one of Killian’s hesitant looks.

When he pulls up at Granny’s instead of the station, she doesn’t notice until he’s put the car in park and switched off the engine.

“What are we doing here?” Her voice sounds rusty and broken. She doesn’t care.

Killian’s voice is soft as he answers. “I thought we could go up to my room and talk. Away from prying eyes and phone calls and interruptions. And also, because that way you can just leave any time you want.”

It’s so tactful and thoughtful and  _ right, _ this plan, that she shudders. Rage bubbles up to the surface, starts to burn through her veins, because  _ how fucking dare he _ be this considerate, and she has to take several deep breaths to get herself back under control.

He pulls out a flask and takes a sip, and it goes a long way towards restoring her equilibrium, because  _ this  _ Killian she knows. He hands her the flask and the rum burns hotter than the rage did, and settles her more. She can handle this.

“It’s OK to be afraid, you know,” he whispers as he screws on the top, not looking at her, and suddenly she’s angry again. He should not be this understanding.

He should not be reading her like a goddamn book.

She takes another deep breath and exits the car before she says something she won’t be able to take back later.

  
  
  


Upstairs in the room she’s almost back to numbness. It’s nice. It would be nicer if he wouldn’t keep looking at her with those worried eyes.

They are not conducive to apathy.

He steers her towards the only chair and takes her jacket before she sits down, and then crouches before her.

“Emma,” he says. “Are you sure you’re---”

She snatches the flask from his hand in an effort to cut him off, and their fingers.

_ Touch _ .

  
  


They are on the rooftop again.

A flat, barren, level rooftop, with the wind howling around them and a clear view of the clock tower in the distance. 

The clock tower is new.

They’re in  _ Storybrooke _ .

Emma wants to shudder, but she can’t, because his arms are around her, and he’s warm and solid and so very real.

“Hey,” he says, and leans forward, his nose brushing hers. His forehead against hers. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here.”

“What if I can’t do it?” she whispers, because she feels empty, empty and useless, and he shouldn’t have so much faith in her. He shouldn’t have  _ any _ faith in her.

“You  _ can _ do it love,” he says. “I know you can.”

Lightning cracks like an explosion, a living release of unspeakable force, and he is ripped from her, 

ripped from her---

_ and she knows how this ends _

  
  


With a scream she comes back to herself and it’s a room at Granny’s she’s in, his room at Granny’s, with its fucking flowered wallpaper and the meticulously made bed and the warm light from the tasteful sconces, and  _ how can everything be so normal when she’s going insane? _

She can feel his hand on hers, warm and sure, and there’s no howling at all as he pulls her up without saying a word, pulls her up and wraps his arms around her and she  _ cries _ .


	7. Chapter 7

  
  
  


“Where are you headed?”

The blond stranger in the nice shiny car unlocks the door and looks up expectantly. August scratches his stubble and hopes he doesn’t smell too much of beer. 

He pulls out a stick of gum and mumbles, “East. Towards the coast.”

Going back is easily the worst idea he’s had after a string of bad decisions so long it could wrap into the world’s biggest ball of twine, and yet-- here he is.

“How far east?”

The stranger waves him in, and August takes a seat on buttery-soft leather. Everything about the blond man screams money. The large watch, the impeccably tailored suit, the custom-painted car - even the haircut looks excessively styled. It is a study in affluence and presentation.

Everything but the eyes.

The eyes look like they know the dirty end of the pool. Know it well. There is damage here, and pain.

“It’s a small town, you won’t know it,” August says, and the stranger pulls back onto Route 2. “You can just drop me off in Bangor. Or Newport, if you’re hitting the interstate.”

“That’s interesting.” The stranger turns, brow furrowed, and August feels a small spike of worry. Not about the man, but about the tone with which he says, ‘interesting’.

“I’m headed to a small town near Bangor myself,” the stranger goes on. “Storybrooke.”

It’s a sign.   
It has to be a sign.   
It has to be a sign that he was meant to go back.

“That can’t be---,” August croaks. There’s a lump in his throat. “That’s where I’m going.”

The stranger’s smile is strained, and yet genuine. “Isn’t that a coincidence.”

The worry in August’s gut amplifies, but again, it doesn’t settle on the man next to him. Just the circumstance. 

“It’s very odd,” he manages to reply. 

The stranger nods. “It is. There have been an awful lot of odd things lately.” The last part he mumbles, clearly speaking to himself, before he shakes his head and looks back at August. 

“Sorry, brooding,” he says. His eyes are light blue and show clear signs of tension, but the smile remains genuine. “What’s your name?”

It takes August a moment to actually remember his name before he manages to say, “August. August Booth.”

“Nice to meet you, August Booth,” the stranger replies. “I’m Victor. Dr. Victor Whale.”

  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  
  


Emma doesn’t know how long she’s been standing there, crying, and doesn’t want to think about it. Killian is silent, unmoving, his arms wrapped tightly around her.

Solid.

Reassuring.

If only she weren’t so terrified.

She lifts her head and his arms relax, let her go slowly, his eyes never leaving hers.

And then he says, “Did you see a rooftop?”

Her knees buckle.

He simply pivots until they’re both sitting on his bed, facing each other. 

Emma blinks slowly.

There’s a faint feeling of nausea and vertigo.

“You saw a rooftop?”

He nods. “I did. A flat rooftop. Lots of wind.”

The nausea increases. So does the terror.

“What else did you see?” She can barely whisper.

“A thunderstorm,” he says, and Emma starts to shake. It can’t be a coincidence.

“Emma?” He leans forward and very, very slowly reaches for her hand. He stops an inch above it and looks up, waiting for permission.

  
She’s afraid. So afraid. Of skin-on-skin contact.

But she nods.

He puts his hand on hers, and nothing happens. Nothing but the familiar spreading of warmth and the feeling of being safe, safe and---

“Whatever this is, you’re in the middle of it.” It hurts her to say, but the time for denial has passed.

_ He saw the rooftop. _

_ He heard the thunder. _

“It only comes out when we touch.”

He nods. Waits for her to go on, to work through it.

“I know it happened when I touched Elsa, but--- this  _ thing _ ,” she waves a vague circle in the air, “Elsa had it, too. It might just be---” 

It’s too strange and too fucking complicated.

And too impossible.

“OK. I can’t explain Elsa, not really, but I think when we touch, you and I, I think maybe you’re like-- like an amplifier? For energy that’s already inside me? Or maybe a conduit? And the more often we touch, the stronger the current, and the stronger the current, the more---  _ fuck _ . I don’t know.”

She looks up at him, helpless.

“I can’t explain it, Killian. I don’t even know what  _ it _ is. What does it mean? And why can’t it just mean that I’m losing my mind?”

“You’re not losing your mind,” he says, and she shouldn’t be as relieved as she is that he sounds so very sure. “And we might not be able to figure it out tonight. But,” he squeezes her hand and his eyes look grave, “I think we must simply be open for anything. Not deny what is happening, no matter how outlandish. Not ignore anything, not repress or rationalize. I think we need to be vigilant for more signs. And you need to listen.”

“Listen to what?” Her voice is small. 

“Yourself. Everything that’s happening inside your head.”

She shudders. “Like I’m not terrified enough just sitting here.”

He lifts her hand again, puts it over his heart.

“I know,” he whispers. “I know. But I think it’s the only way.”

She nods.   
He’s right.   
She can’t think of a single alternative.

Then he slowly lets go and gets up.

“Neither one of us has eaten since breakfast, and it’s dinnertime.” He holds out his hand. “Let’s go downstairs and have some food and then you can tell me exactly what you saw.”

She feels cold and numb and helpless, but then she takes his hand and he pulls her up. 

“See?” His eyes are soft as he smiles at her. “Whatever it is, it’s not a bad thing when we come in contact.” The tips of his ears turn bright red as he scratches behind the right one. “Nothing that feels--- nothing this warm and---” he shuffles and huffs and looks away. “It can’t be bad. It can’t feel like this and be bad.”

And no matter what else, Emma has to agree.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“Where are you coming from?”

It’s the first thing August has dared say since they exchanged names. The man next to him is intimidating in his incongruity, in the way he seems both put together and yet unbalanced. It looks like a carefully constructed image in which Dr. Victor Whale has created himself, one which doesn’t quite suit him, but which he takes great pains to maintain.

His eyes are a dead giveaway that all is not what it seems, and that the careless entitlement proclaimed by the wrapper is most certainly not the content of this package.

Sometimes August misses being a detective.

“Boston,” the man says, and August frowns.

“Boston-- how on earth did you come to pick me up along Route 2 in fucking New Hampshire?” He stops himself and smiles, chagrined. 

“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry for the language.”

Whale laughs out loud. It sounds heartfelt, but like he’s out of practise. “Are you kidding? I’m a  _ surgeon _ . You don’t know language until you’ve been in an OR. Tarantino on his best day couldn’t write what we say in there.”

August has to grin. “You should see a metropolitan precinct bullpen at 4AM on Halloween. When you’re questioning suspects as they puke on you.”

The doctor laughs again. It sounds marginally more relaxed. “Is that what you do? You’re a cop?”

It hits him out of nowhere and August has to take a very deep breath.

And another.

And another.

“I used to be,” he finally manages, and opens his backpack. “Is it OK if I have a beer?”

Whale turns, and looks at him with uncomfortably sharp eyes, and then nods. 

“It’s fine,” he says quietly. “Go ahead.” 

He looks back at the road. “But to answer your question, it’s because I’m an idiot.” At August’s puzzled look he clarifies, “The reason I picked you up in New Hampshire, way off course.”

“You can’t be an idiot. You’re a fucking doctor.”

Whale shakes his head. “Yeah, well, I’m also a very tired man coming off an 18-hour shift, and didn’t realize I was going up I-93 instead of I-95 until I was in the middle of White Mountain National Forest.”

There it is again.   
Another sign.

This man, who picked him up off the side of the road while August was still contemplating changing his mind and continuing to run wasn’t even supposed to be there.

Was supposed to be on a freeway a hundred miles east.   
Yet here he is instead, on the same road as August, on his way to the same fucking town, and it can’t be a coincidence.

“In that case I am both extremely lucky and very grateful you came along,” August says, and takes a large sip of his beer.

Whale throws him the first smile that reaches his eyes. “My pleasure,” he says, and turns back to the road.

  
  


.

-/-

  
  
  


“David?”

  
When he hears his name he snaps back to reality and it feels like coming out of hibernation. He realizes that he is still holding Graham’s file in his hand, and that the only light inside the station comes from Emma’s desk. When he looks up he sees Mary Margaret looking down at him, her eyes sharp and her lips pinched and worried.

“David?” Definitely worried. “What are you doing here, sitting in the dark?”

He doesn’t know. Doesn’t remember what he was thinking. Doesn’t remember why he is here.

“David - are you all right?”

Possibly. Maybe. But that is not her concern. It shouldn’t be.

“I’m fine Ms--- sorry.” He blinks and shakes his head. It’s like his brain is on a delay. He blinks again, gets up and turns on the overhead light. “What can I do for you?”

“You--- David, you look really out of it. Are you  _ sure _ you’re OK?”

He won’t admit it under pain of death, but that note of worry in her voice is the nicest thing that’s happened to him, ever.

“I’m fine,” he smiles, and she beams back at him. “What do you need?”

“I was thinking,” she says, “about Graham. And how his tracks disappeared.” 

David can feel his whole body stiffen in fear.

“Tell me you didn’t go out to the bridge by yourself.” He grabs her arm, squeezes tightly. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“Of course not,” she says with a full-body eyeroll. “I’m not an idiot.” Her eyes grow marginally softer. “And besides. I promised you.”

He breathes a sigh of relief. 

“But a thought did occur to me,” she goes on, her voice pensive. “And it’s crazy, I know that, but the whole time we were checking out the scene, all three times we went there, you know what we never did?”

David slowly shakes his head, and the fear comes back fast and hard.

“What?” He rasps. “What didn’t we do?”

Mary Margaret meets his gaze head on. “Look up.”

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“So this is the diner you said also has rooms?”

August stretches and nods at the doctor. He’s hungry, and he did like Granny’s, back when he stayed here. Did like the rooms, whenever he wasn’t sleeping in Sheriff Swan’s holding cell.   
The rooms were infinitely more comfortable.

He nods, smiles a bit and motions towards the door.

“It’s probably not what you’re used to, given that your shoes probably cost more than my rent back in Boston, but Granny makes a mean onion ring, and the rooms are clean.”

The doctor’s eyes narrow. “How would you know what I’m used to,” he mumbles as he opens the door. 

And then freezes.

Just stands in the doorway, still as a statue, and just as immovable.

August follows his line of sight and sees two people facing each other in a booth on the left. A woman with blonde hair and her back to him, and a man with dark hair and enough scruff to nearly qualify as a beard.

Killian is here.

Killian is here, talking to Sheriff Swan.

And the doctor is staring at them both.

He knows them.   
He knows at least one of them.

He’s here because of at least one of them. And if August had to guess, that person is----

“Killian?” Whale shakes his head and releases the door.

“ _ Victor? _ ” Killian looks up, surprise clear on his face, and then his eyes wander over and settle on-- 

“ _ August? _ ”

The sheriff’s head whips around at that and August can tell that she knows a lot more than she did the last time he saw her. A  _ lot  _ more.

“We were trying to find you,” Emma says, and gets up. “Killian said we needed you, needed your help, but I couldn’t find a trace of where you’d gone.”

“I wasn’t a detective for nothing.” August grins for a moment. “If I don’t want to be found, I---” 

But one look at Killian’s face tells him exactly why Killian needs help, and August wishes fervently that back at that rest stop he’d told his conscience to shove it and kept running.

Also, he should not have stuck to beer. He is way too sober for this.

“Can somebody tell me what’s going on?” Whale’s voice sounds strained and uncertain as he looks at the Sheriff, and August picks up an undercurrent of--- something. He fixates on it, concentrates on it, in order to not have to think about anything else.

“And who are you?”

“Sorry,” Killian gets up as well. “Victor - this is Storybrooke’s Sheriff, Emma Swan. Emma, this is Dr Victor Whale, a friend of mine from Boston.”

“Victor will do,” Whale says and shakes Emma’s hand, but his movements are stiff.

August slides into the booth next to Emma and backs into the corner to get the best possible view of all the actors in this little drama.

Because there’s no way he’s thinking about blood-soaked symbols and bloodier quills before he’s had a lot more alcohol.

No way.

He orders a double shot of rye.

“Tell me again why you’re here? And--- how on earth did you two meet?” Killian sounds puzzled, like this is too big a coincidence. August is inclined to agree. 

“Elsa called me,” Whale says, his voice strained. “She said you’d gone hunting down old ghosts. Sent me to keep an eye on you.”

The last part is a lie. The doctor is not here because he was sent by anyone. He is definitely here out of his own free will.

“And you?”

It’s the sheriff who asks, and August quirks a brow at her.  _ Don’t think _ . “Missed the cot in your holding cell.”

“Smartass.” She smiles at him, and August watches as Killian’s face grows soft as he looks at the sheriff, watches as Whale’s expression goes blank as he looks away.

“I was almost in Lancaster,” August says, because not thinking will only get him so far, and he might as well accept that he’s here now, back in the fucking thick of it. “I almost kept running.” He shrugs. “But then I thought, I’m never going to be able to run far enough or fast enough to escape it.”

The waitress brings his double shot just in time, and he slams it down and orders another.

Then he sighs, and the sheriff pats his arm, her eyes kind.

“I know I haven’t been a detective in forever,” he goes on, and does not count the number of years it’s been. “And I know I’m not exactly, well---”

He can’t finish that sentence, not with  _ everyone  _ looking at him full of empathy. Where is that damn rye? 

“But I’m here to help.”

“I’m glad you came back,” Sheriff Swan says, her voice low and sincere. “We definitely need help.”

And then her phone rings.

The longer she speaks, the tenser her shoulders. The muscle in her jaw jumps, and Killian leans forward, worry clearly written all over his features, and almost touches her hand.

The Sheriff smiles at Killian, strained but grateful, and then August catches the expression on Victor’s face, and oh.

_ Oh. _

Well.

This is going to end in heartbreak.

“David says Ms Blanchard came up with some interesting theories regarding the tracks surrounding the bridge,” Emma says as she hangs up. “And he also says he has to show us something on the bridge itself.” She quirks a tired eyebrow at Killian. “He was going to show us after we got back from the cabin, but apparently, we  _ never did make it back to the station, and now it’s too dark _ .”

She does a perfect impression of her Deputy in full huff, and Killian laughs out loud. A faint blush creeps across Emma’s cheeks and Whale across from her looks like it physically hurts him to sit in the booth.

Then Emma checks her watch. 

“It’s late,” she says, “and there is nothing else we can do tonight. Let’s all get some sleep---” she looks pointedly at Killian, who has dark purple shadows under his eyes, “and meet back here at 7 for breakfast, OK?”

August nearly chokes on his second double shot and coughs for a solid 30 seconds. 

“Oh god,” he finally croaks, “by all that is good and holy, Sheriff, please make it 8.”

She rolls her eyes, but nods, and they all awkwardly slide out of the booth.

“You can stay here,” Killian says to Whale. “The rooms are decent.”

“So I’ve been told,” Victor smirks, and August has to smile.

He watches as Victor walks up to Granny and asks about her rates, and admits to himself that the doctor has a very nice smile, and a  _ very _ nice ass. Even if he’s crushing on the impossible get.

Yes, this definitely has the potential to end in heartbreak.

_ Unless. _

  
  
  


-/- 

“I’m walking you home.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

It’s a standoff without winners. Killian looks as determined as Emma has seen him yet, and she feels equal parts touched and supremely annoyed. 

She does not need a chaperone.

But he doesn’t blink.

“Stop it,” she says. “I’m a sheriff. I can take care of myself.”

“Swan,” he sighs, but his voice has no give. “Don’t you think I know that by now?” A note of steel creeps into his tone, subsumes the permanent exhaustion. “Do you really believe I doubt your abilities? Still?”

The note of steel isn’t irritation, she realizes. It’s--- distress. 

“Emma.” Even quieter now. Even more urgent. “This is no time for----” He stops. Clears his throat. “I know you are tough and skilled and resourceful. Everyone so far has been tough and skilled and resourceful. Every one.”   
_ Oh god.  _

“Please---” His voice cuts out, he shakes his head. “Just let me see you home. If for nothing else but my own peace of mind.”

And suddenly it is easy to concede.

“Bring your overnight bag,” she says, amazed that it took her so long to suggest it, dancing around misplaced pride and unnamed emotions as she has been for days now. “You can crash on my couch.”

He looks unspeakably relieved.

She waits as he runs up to his room, shakes her head at herself.

Maybe on her couch he will finally get some sleep.

.

  
  


“Boy Scout packing his toothbrush?”

August’s voice tears her from her thoughts and she watches as he slowly makes his way down the diner’s front steps.

“Did you just call Detective Jones a  _ Boy Scout? _ ”

August laughs and pulls out a flask. “Trust me, Sheriff. The shoe fits.”   
“Apart from the fact that he breaks all the rules and he drinks like a fish.”

“Does he now,” August says, and lifts his flask. “Cheers.” 

He takes a long sip and sits down at one of the empty tables. “From where I’m standing the boy is stone cold sober and has his demons well on a leash.” He holds the flask out to her. “Drink?”

Emma shakes her head. 

“Be careful, Sheriff.”

She scoffs and gears up to tell August exactly what she thinks of his advice when he cuts her off.

“Don’t.” August’s voice is pure flint. “Don’t even think you know what this is all about. What it will do to you, to your town, to your deputy. Don’t you dare look at Killian as a piece of damaged goods. You wait and watch everyone you love die and then,  _ maybe _ , you get to have an opinion. If you have enough sanity left for one.”

He looks at her like a piece of refuse, and she realizes that she couldn’t speak if she tried.

He takes another sip. “He’s a fucking university professor charging headfirst into dark alleys and crack dens and shots fired, so don’t you  _ dare _ .  _ He’s _ still on the job.  _ He’s _ still functioning.”

“I don’t think of him as damaged goods.” Emma’s voice is gravel and shame. “I never thought that.”

August gets up, takes a step towards her, enters her space. Focuses his eyes squarely on her. She can smell cheap whisky on his breath.

But his eyes are clear, and she holds his gaze. Doesn’t blink until he finally nods.

“Good,” he says, and she feels like she just passed the most important test she has ever taken.

“What’s going on here?”

Killian looks puzzled and August leans back as he and Emma both say, “Nothing.” And Killian’s brows furrow.

Emma stands frozen and August whispers, “Sorry if I came on a bit strong. Old ghosts.”

She nods, and he turns to Killian. 

“I wish I could say I’m happy to be here.” 

He holds out the flask, but Killian declines, and August shoots Emma a look that could have cut glass. She bites her lip hard, needs the pain to anchor her to this moment. To stay in the present. 

Then August turns back, shrugs, and smiles at the detective. “But it is good to see you, old friend.”

Killian grins, small and wistful. “It is. You staying here?”

August nods. “Clean sheets and a liquor license? I could do worse.”

“Much worse.” Killian’s grin widens for a moment, before once again turning somber. “Keep an eye out for Victor? I don’t know why he’s here, and he looked a bit spooked.”

“You don’t know why he’s here?” August laughs out loud. 

Killian shakes his head, and Emma gets the feeling she is missing something big.

“I can’t believe they ever made you a detective.” August laughs again. “You don’t notice shit.”

And with that he takes another long swig and makes his way up the steps.

“But don’t worry, princess,” he shoots back over his shoulder. “I’ll keep both eyes peeled.”

Emma can hear him laughing all the way up the stairs.

.

  
  


“You all right, Swan?” 

She hasn’t spoken the entire way to her house, and his words sound strangely loud after the perfect silence of their walk.

“Fine,” she says, unlocks the front door, and turns on the light.

The living room looks--- lovely. Bright and homey, with a comfortable-looking couch and an overstuffed chair and books  _ everywhere _ . It’s how his own living room used to look, more or less, back when he had a life. It’s how he would like to live again, someday. When he gets his life back. 

If he gets his life back.

Emma is walking around, rambling on about sheets on the couch and blankets to spare and does he need pillows? - and he reaches for her arm.

She stills in her tracks, an afghan in one hand and a cushion in the other, and he swears she is  _ vibrating _ . “Emma,” he says, and she’s not looking at him, not moving, not breathing, and he asks again. “Are you all right?”

“I think you’re the smartest man I ever met,” she says, and turns towards him. There are tears in her eyes, and the words sound like they were ripped straight from her soul. “I think you’re brilliant and brave and stronger than----”

Her voice breaks on a sob and she yanks her arm from his grip with force.

“And I never thought you were damaged goods, I never thought, I----”

She sobs again, and tears start to roll down her cheeks.

“But I did.” Her voice is a cracked whisper. “Oh god, Killian, I did. I thought--- oh my god, I  _ did _ .”

She wipes her cheeks in hard, angry swipes, and he wishes there was something he could say, because she’s obviously distressed, but he doesn’t even know what’s happening.

“You said you were all those things, but you’re not, you’re  _ not _ , and I thought all the wrong---” her voice is somersaulting--- “and then August came and said all the--- and I just--- I just----” 

A sob hits her so hard, it sounds like she’s choking.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so so so sorry.”

She hands him the blanket and the pillow.

“Please make yourself at home. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. The bathroom is down the hall. What’s mine is yours.” She wipes her cheeks again. Tries to smile. Fails. “I’ll see you in the morning. Just - take anything you need.” 

And then she turns to go upstairs and leaves Killian standing in the middle of the room.

Completely bewildered.

.

  
  


“Hey.”

It’s pitch dark out still. She was trying to be as quiet as possible, but there he is in her kitchen doorway, running a hand through his disheveled hair as he looks at her closely. She knows her face is still red and puffy. She can’t bring herself to care.

She puts down the coffee can and looks up. “Did you get any sleep?”

He smiles. It’s happy and unguarded and makes him look so very  _ young _ . “I did. Best sleep I had in years.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, because it can’t wait. “I’m sorry about last night. I don’t know what came over me.”

He takes a small step towards her.

“Emma.” His voice is as kind as his smile. “You’ve had some cruelly hard days and barely any rest. I’m amazed you’re ambulatory, never mind sane.” His hand reaches for hers slowly, and the moment they touch the lovely warmth spreads through her again, and oh, how she missed it.

“You’d be entitled to a bona fide nervous breakdown by now, and yet you’re just plugging away as if this were any other case.”

He takes her other hand. It feels so safe, she nearly cries again.

“So give yourself a break. You have nothing to be sorry about. I’ve been where you are, and trust me, I was in much worse shape then than you are now.”

She swallows hard.

Part of her wants to tell him to leave, not to go through all of this again.

Part of her wants to figure this out and put an end to the whole thing, once and for all.

Most of her just wants to remain here, in limbo, holding his hand.

“So please don’t be sorry,” he says. 

She nods and silence descends upon them. His hands are warm, folded through hers, and he pulls both of them up, against his heart, and they just look at each other.

Breathing in rhythm.

Emma thinks she can hear their hearts beating. Together.

She can’t think, can’t move, can’t do anything but stand there in her kitchen, with his blue eyes on hers and his warmth in her veins.

After an eternity he whispers, “This too, shall pass.”

And for a moment Emma gets the feeling that that’s not what he wanted to say at all.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU ALL - for reading and for being so incredibly patient.
> 
> About that new pairing that's starting to emerge here, all i have to say is that i did NOTHING. OK? NOTHING. August got into Victor's car and they started making googly eyes at each other totally without my doing.  
> Also - profdanglais has now coined this pairing DOCTOR WOOD, which is brilliant and perfect and i laughed out loud when she suggested it.  
> Plus - it has all the earmarks of becoming my new favorite chew toy.  
> 🤣🤣🤣💕💕💕


	8. Chapter 8

On one side of a narrow river, fast and flush with fall rains, next to a steel bridge which has seen better days, four people stand, waiting.

A tall man with brown hair and bloodshot eyes, clearly hungover, is mostly trying to keep his bearings. Next to him a blond man looks forlorn and wary, like he’s unnerved by the entire situation, and none of the other people present can blame him. Least of all the man with the bloodshot eyes, who makes a point to nod at the blond man in an effort of reassurance. Several times.

A woman with a messy ponytail and a disheveled-looking man with blue eyes and lots of scruff stand slightly to the side, neither moving nor touching. All they do is glance up the hill to where their parked cruiser stands, then at each other, then at their watches.

“Where are they?” The woman asks, her voice low and worried.

“They’ll be here,” says the man. 

It’s minutes later when the scruffy man turns to the blond one and says, “Victor, you should go. This has nothing to do with you,” and the blond man replies, “I’m staying.”

“Why?” It comes out gruff and the blond man flinches.

But then he lifts his chin and says with no small means of defiance, “I’m a doctor. You may need one.”

And they all fall silent again.

Until they hear a car door slam closed above them, and turn to watch two more people come down the hill.

Another blond man, this one in a deputy’s uniform.

And a small brunette with a large rifle slung behind her back.

  
  


.

  
  


“Call me Mary Margaret.” Emma smiles at Ms Blanchard’s very firm handshake.

“Sheriff Emma Swan,” she replies. “I heard you ran circles around my tracking?”

Ms Blanchard blushes a very pretty shade of pink, which almost immediately mirrors in her deputy’s cheeks, and Emma files that information away for much, much later.

“I, uh, didn’t mean to---”

“I’m not complaining,” Emma cuts off the beginnings of her apology. “I only know the basics, and my experience is more reading crime scenes than spoor. I’m glad you’re here.”

Mary Margaret smiles an absolutely radiant smile, and David behind her blushes even more, and oh god, he’s got it bad. Emma will spend many a future night making merciless fun of him.

If they get future nights.

A spike of pure fear makes Emma’s breath hitch and she pushes it down.

“David said you had something to show us?”

Mary Margaret nods, and lets her gaze wander up over the surrounding trees, their branches creaking in the wind. She spends a long time looking, and they all follow her example, but Emma can’t make out anything but evergreen needles and the last falling leaves of the deciduous. 

Mary Margaret’s brow furrows, but she doesn’t comment before she finally motions towards the bridge itself.

“Here, let me show you,” she says, and leads them all to the middle, before turning to Emma and pointing at the slats. “We have to lie down.”

Emma gets down on cold, rusty metal, and can feel Killian lie down down beside her. He’s warm next to her, and just close enough to touch down the length of her side, and she smiles at him briefly before looking back at Mary Margaret on her other side.

Mary Margaret, who lifts her hand and points.

Up.

The moment Emma sees the symbols down the length of the bannister, she can feel Killian beside her go rigid. His breath  _ stops _ . The letters look exactly like the ones on the note cards, like the ones on Leroy’s back, but they don’t look carved into the metal, they look etched.

As if they were made by acid, something corrosive.

She lifts her hand to trace them when an iron grip closes around her wrist and Killian next to her yells, “ _ DON’T! _ ” and yanks her arm away so forcefully, her shoulder protests loudly for a brief moment. He sits up, breathing hard, and when he speaks, his voice is a gravelly hiss.

“Don’t touch anything.” He looks sharply at Emma and Mary Margaret. “Nothing at all.” Then he turns to David. “We need to photograph all of this. Do you have your crime scene kit and camera?”

The deputy nods, and Killian looks at August.   
“Go with him,” he says. “Help the deputy get his gear, take the photos. You know what to do. Touch  _ nothing. _ ”

It is only then that he seems to come back to himself and looks at Emma, ducking his head. “Sorry. I’m sorry. This is  _ your  _ crime scene. I just-- I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK,” she says, and sits up, nodding. “Go ahead, David. Get the camera, document all of this. Make sure it’s sequential, and stays in order.”

She stands, helps up Mary Margaret, and Killian looks relieved and contrite in equal measure.

“Did I hurt you?” He whispers. “Your arm, did it hurt? I’m sorry.”

“I’m fine,” she says, and smiles. “Don’t worry about me.” 

Then she drops her voice low. “Have you seen this kind of thing before? Symbols on structures?”

Killian’s eyes are large and worried as he shakes his head. “Never. I don’t know what to make of them.” 

Emma watches as his eyes drift over to August and the doctor, bent over the CSI cases with her deputy. It’s a sign she has learned to recognize. Killian looking away in that manner is a clear indicator that he’s completely caught inside his own head.

So she waits.

“They weren’t made by a quill,” he finally says. He turns his head back to her, his eyes focus slowly on hers.

Emma nods.  “I don’t think they were made by any type of blade or point. It looked chemical, like the top layer of the steel was stripped.”

“We have to swab it.” Killian shakes his head. “We have to test it for particulates, residue, anything concrete---”

“And we will.” Emma slowly puts her hand on his arm. He looks so very strained. 

“Killian.” She waits until he meets her eyes, gives her his full attention. “We’ll take all the samples and do all the tests, OK? And we’ll be careful.” He gives her a wan smile. “But now let’s sweep the area one more time and find out what Ms Blanchard wanted to----”

“ _ SHERIFF! _ ” It’s Mary Margaret’s voice, from the other side of the river. Its pitch is easily an octave above normal, and somersaulting all over her words. “ _ SHERIFF! YOU HAVE TO COME HERE! _ ”

David sprints past them with a clatter of hard-soled shoes, and Emma and Killian break into a run to follow.

Behind them Emma can hear both August and Whale, but slower.

  
On the other side of the bridge is a clearing which runs in a very gentle slope down to the wide, generous bank of the river. This side belongs to the forest - there are neither roads nor paths, just the trees and many, many animal prints leading down to the watering hole.

Mary Margaret stands at the far edge of the clearing, right at the tree line, white as a sheet and shaking. 

“I knew they couldn’t have just disappeared,” she says. Her eyes are glassy and she’s mumbling to herself. “They couldn’t have, it’s just not possible.”

She looks at David. “I said it the first time, didn’t I? That it’s not possible?”

Emma watches her deputy slowly take Mary Margaret’s hands and ask quietly, “What are you talking about? What’s impossible?”

Her eyes fill with tears. “Graham’s tracks, they just disappeared, and now I know why.”

She swallows hard, and more tears fall.   
“Look!” Her voice cuts out and she tries again. “Look up.”

And six pairs of eyes lift to look at the trees above.

On a high branch in the tree to their left - an enormous rowan  with quite a few leaves left - a figure swings gently in the wind.

Wearing a coarse linen robe, strung up by the wrists which are bound together underneath cupped hands, hangs the Huntsman.

  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  
  


“What. The Fuck.”

Victor’s eyes are enormous as he looks from the corpse dangling up high to each member of the group and then back again. He looks thoroughly bewildered and not a little afraid.

August can’t blame him. It’s a gruesome sight.

The Sheriff and Killian subconsciously step closer to each other, but they don’t touch. August can see Killian’s hand twitch like he wants to take hers and stops himself at the last moment. Repeatedly. Not like the deputy and the woman with the rifle. David is hugging her hard. It looks like she knew the victim.

“We have to cut him down,” August finally says, trying to keep his voice quiet, calm. While every fiber in his body is telling him to  _ Run. Now. _

Killian nods. “Without touching anything.” He looks up again, squinting. “Emma? Are there carvings on the branches?”

Sheriff Swan whispers, “I can’t tell.” And steps even closer to Killian. There’s barely an inch of space between them now, and August can see them for what they are: A unit. 

This is new, and it takes him completely unawares.

The fact that Killian is part of something again.

  
  


Back in Boston, a lifetime ago, when August and Liam were partners and caught the first in that string of strange homicides which would end their lives figuratively for one and literally for the other, Killian was just a stuttering image and lagging audio across an old computer screen. Just someone Liam had videoconferenced to consult, because he’d had the sinking feeling that the randomly carved lines on the notecards were in fact not random at all. Especially not after they found similar ones across the back of the victim.

And Liam had been right.

The lines were not random, they were an ancient phonetic alphabet which had been used to transcribe another ancient language, and Liam asked his brother to come and consult.

August remembers it well.

He remembers the Killian who first came to Boston, a walking cliché in tweed and elbow patches, with his messy hair and his scruff and his eyes constantly laughing. They’d ribbed each other, Liam and Killian, like only brothers who truly love, truly understand each other can, and through it all Liam made sure everyone knew that his little brother was the smartest man in any room he walked into.

To which Killian would blush and half-smile, and then roll his eyes and make another futile attempt to get Liam to say ‘younger brother’. Which he never did.

And then tragedy struck and that Killian, the one with the quick jokes and the easy smile and the laughing eyes vanished. He disappeared like the body of his brother they never found, and changed his life’s calling and purpose to the pursuit of atonement. 

Years now, years of this, of penance and pain and the weight of the dead.

Of sifting the wreckage of lives destroyed and deaths unavenged, while August dove into a bottle and never came back up for air.

And now Killian is here, broken and damaged and yet functioning, and it throws August for a loop, hard, the way Killian and the Sheriff seem to vibrate along the same frequency. The way they are in tune, attuned, in this perfect sync and click which Killian has never had with anyone save his brother.

It’s simultaneously the most hopeful and the most terrifying sign yet.

  
  
  


There’s a deafening  _ crack _ , and Killian and David both shout, “ _ GET BACK! _ ” as the branch breaks off and slams to the ground, corpse and all.

“Everybody OK?” Emma’s voice is unsteady. “Anyone hurt?”

August looks around, but everyone seems fine, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

Killian pulls at Emma’s shoulder to look at her, and she smiles at him, tells him she’s fine.

David is looking up at the tree, trying to gauge the damage.

The short-haired brunette has pulled the rifle off her back and is holding it in a firm regulation grip, barrel-down, index finger well away from the trigger. She definitely knows her weaponry, and seems to have a handle on her emotions now. She’s no longer crying.

And Victor----

It’s a second too late. He looks for Victor a second too late, a fleeting moment, a blink, a fucking fraction of time too late, because Victor has of course stepped forward

_ he’s a doctor, He’sADoctor _

up to the corpse

_ how could you forget he’s a fucking DOCTOR _

and knelt down next to it

_ and he knows nothing about this case, nothing _

and stretched out his hand, his bare hand

_ why didn’t you check on Victor first _

to touch----

Killian and Emma and David and August simultaneously scream, “ _ DON’T _ ”, scream “ _ STOP! _ ”, and August leaps forward, but it’s too late

_ it’s too late _

and Victor’s outstretched, bare fingers touch the cold, dead skin of Graham’s wrist.

August’s momentum rips Victor away a split second later, but it’s not enough, and he knows it’s not enough, and they both tumble to the ground amidst brown leaves and cold earth and August swears he can hear the jaws of fate snapping shut.

And then there is silence.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


_ How long? _

It’s the question on everybody’s mind. In everyone’s eyes. Emma can almost taste it in the air.

_ How long does he have? _

David is busy cordoning off a perimeter. For all the good it will do now. 

Emma has called the ME, and Ashley says she’ll come down here with the siren, cut her driving time in half. Like it’s going to make a difference.

Victor sits on a tree trunk off to the side, pale, shaking, listening to Killian and August. Tell him about how he is going to--- how he is going to---- 

“What’s going to happen to him?”

Emma turns and finds herself facing Ms Blanchard, her eyes narrowed, the rifle across her shoulder.

Emma shrugs. “I’m not sure, exactly.”

“I realize I’m just a civilian. And an elementary school teacher to boot.”  Ms Blancha rd’s tone is resolute and firm. Emma has no trouble believing she can keep infinite numbers of 4th graders in a very straight line. “But I have eyes. There’s no need for discretion with me.” She shakes her head. “That guy over there, he’s the next victim. Isn’t he.”

Emma looks at the woman before her, and it’s almost a relief to be able to nod. “I think he might be.”

“Graham found the last victim, didn’t he.”

Emma nods again.

“Do you think Graham touched him? Do you think that’s why he died?”

Ms Blanchard’s voice shakes on the last bit, and Emma remembers that she was friends with the hunter. 

“I think it’s very likely,” she says gently. “Leroy was prostrate on the bridge, not displayed in a tree. Graham probably tried to help, or check his pulse.”

“That makes sense.” Ms Blanchard’s voice is very quiet now. “He knew first aid. And he was a very decent person.” She looks up at Emma and sniffs, once. “Did you know he tried to call me before he died?”

“He what?”

“It’s in my statement. I--- I told David?”

Emma shakes her head to clear it. 

“Ms Blanchard---”

“Please Sheriff. I told you to call me Mary Margaret.”

Emma can’t pay attention to niceties right now.

“When you say Graham called you before he died, what do you mean? How long before he died? What did you talk about?”

“We didn’t talk.” Mary Margaret looks supremely unhappy now. “He called sometime after midnight. He tried, at least. I woke up to 23 missed calls.” She sniffs again. “I’m a heavy sleeper.” It sounds like an apology. “Anyway, by the time I woke up and found my phone, he’d stopped, and I tried to call back, but all I got was his voicemail, and I----” her voice breaks--- “and then I never saw him again.”

She’s holding on by the barest of threads. Emma feels a pang of empathy.

“I’m sorry Ms Blanchard.”

The brunette rolls her eyes.

“I’m sorry  _ Mary Margaret _ ,” Emma says, and gets a wan smile in return. “But thank you for telling me. This is incredibly helpful information.”

“How so?”

“Because this area is remote and wooded, and we have no less than five cell towers covering it.” Emma feels a slim ray of hope for the first time in a long time. This is tangible evidence. This is what she does. “And now we can triangulate the signals and track Graham’s movements. His  _ exact  _ movements.”

  
  
  


-/-

  
  


“We are not joking, Victor. This is real.”

August’s voice is as soft as Killian has ever heard it, and Victor grows very, very still.

Only minutes ago he was rolling his eyes at Killian and August and laughing out loud at the preposterous notion of tangible  _ evil _ that chooses its victims by touch, and Killian can’t blame him for thinking they are short all the fries of a Happy Meal, but he is also so, so tired of fighting this fight.

Of explaining every preposterous aspect of this godforsaken case.

Over. And over. And over.

He looks at Emma, talking to the school teacher, and she feels his gaze, meets his eyes, and smiles. It gives him enough strength to turn back to Victor, now pale and quiet, looking up at them with uncertain eyes and no small amount of fear.

He feels his gut tighten into nausea.

This is his friend.   
His friend who is going to----

Victor was Elsa’s friend first. She met him long after Liam died and she went back to work, met him at the hospital where she did her assessment sessions for insanity pleas. Suddenly the word ‘Victor‘ crept into a lot of her stories, and Killian was so suspicious of him at first, just poised to hate him.

Until Elsa finally invited them both out for drinks, and Killian realized that Dr. Whale was just helping Elsa through things, and was not going to tarnish Liam’s memory.

He was also smart and wickedly funny and obviously cared a great deal about Elsa, and it was just so wonderful sometimes to have someone to talk to who knew  _ nothing _ about impossible cases and deadly quills and runes carved in blood. Especially since August had disappeared down a long liquid spiral, and Elsa spent her nights surrounded by framed memories.

Killian had just completed his rookie year at the Boston PD and was spending all his time either trying to untwist Liam’s death or studying for the detective’s exam, and it was just such a pleasure to go meet Victor for drinks and talk about  _ none of it _ .

To just have a conversation about the Bruins (Killian doesn’t know hockey, but he does know how to let other people talk about hockey), or about the Red Sox (same principle), or about the absolutely insane practical jokes surgeons play on each other (he’s now convinced they’re all eternally just hitting puberty). So he went to whatever bar whenever Victor called to meet him, and for one night didn’t think about anything, and simply enjoyed the fact that Victor was smart and wickedly funny and knew nothing. 

And he didn’t have to carry the weight of the dead for a little while.

And now this friend, this friend, is going to----

Is going to----

Next to Killian August crouches and pats Victor’s knee.

“Hey,” August says, and his voice is still soft and careful. Not a hint of its usual mix of bitterness and irony. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

Victor’s eyes follow August’s movement, but don’t seem to see him. August looks up. 

“Right, Killian?”

Killian nods. There is no way he is losing another----

“Right.” August gets up and holds his hand out to Victor. “Now come with me. We are going to go back and have a fucking drink.”

Victor’s empty eyes blink. “It’s not even 10AM yet.”

“Trauma exception,” August says, and pulls the doctor to his feet. “Killian, can I borrow your car?”

  
  


Killian watches them both walk away, and doesn’t notice Emma until he feels her hand fold into his. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Which it is.

“Where are they going?”   
He turns to look at her. 

Standing there, in the middle of these woods, in the middle of this cursed case, faced with impossible odds and improbable facts, with nothing but a deputy who’s never worked a homicide and an alcoholic ex-cop and a burned-out detective and an  _ elementary school teacher  _ on her side, Emma is holding his hand and offering comfort and care and support, and he lets go of her hand, catches the flash of hurt in her eyes, but he needs both of his hands, right now---

_ right now--- _

to lean in 

and take her face 

and tilt it up

and kiss her.

Like he means it.

Like he has never meant anything ever in his entire life.

His entire.

Life.

She stiffens for a moment.

And then melts against him, like a key sliding into a lock, and she kisses him back

back

_ back _

and it is  _ everythingeverythingeverything. _

Everything.

  
  


.

  
  
  


There have been lessons in Emma’s life, hard-won and arduous; lessons she fought and bled for for years. 

She has learned that trust must be earned and sparingly given, promises are more often broken than kept, and that that which you do not feel cannot hurt you.

She has learned to be prudent with people and wary of good fortune, to not give without cause nor receive without caution, and that to be safe is always better than to be sorry.

She has learned that to be free of attachment, unbound by people or places or things, is the safest way to live.

None it matters the moment his lips touch hers.

For one, brief, fleeting moment the lessons learned and the defenses built in their name scream in protest, and then---

_ and then--- _

The warmth and peace and utter sense of belonging, and closeness, and oh god,  _ home _ . The sense of being seen, and treasured, and fucking  _ cherished _ . It’s almost too much.

She has to breathe through the tears that are threatening to come, because he is kissing her like he is the river and she is the sea.

And she should be afraid. 

This is how they kiss on the rooftop in her vision amidst lightning and thunder and a storm raging destruction, which means they are another step closer to their inevitable demise, but she can’t because nothing

nothing 

_ nothing can feel like this and be bad. _

  
  
  


When he pulls back his eyes are soft, and he smiles a small, shy smile, and then whispers, “Emma?”

She nods. Her voice is not working.

“I’m not sorry,” he says. “I’ve wanted to do that since----” He exhales, slowly. His hand runs down her arm until it reaches her hand, and he folds his fingers through hers. 

And squeezes them, hard.

“I’ve wanted to do that since the night we spent at Elsa’s house.”

Once again his voice is a whisper, and Emma thinks of that morning, when she woke up in a panic from the first vision and he came downstairs to comfort her, and in the middle of that room full of memories of everything he’d lost promised her they would prevail.

Promised her he would not let anything happen to her.

Her eyes fill with tears and she simply stands up on tiptoes and kisses him again. He wraps himself around her with a sigh, and when they finally break apart he doesn’t let go, leans his forehead against hers, rubs his thumb across her cheek. Takes a few deep breaths as if he’s about to say something - but remains silent.

Then David very pointedly clears his throat and Emma remembers they’re in the woods with her deputy and a civilian and a  _ corpse _ . 

“Back to work,” she whispers, and Killian smiles.

“Yes,” he says. Just that one word. But she doesn’t need anything else.

Then she turns to David, and he lets go of her hand, and the loss of warmth is simply awful. But there is a killer to catch.

Also, David is scowling like thunder while Mary Margaret is rolling her eyes, and Emma nearly laughs out loud. It’s so  _ normal _ . Their reactions are so very much part of How Things Are Supposed To Be.

Not the Twilight Zone version her world has become. She half expects David to break out a lecture.

But instead he points across the bridge.

“I think Ashley is here,” he says, and they all watch the ME as she comes down the hill.

Ashley looks around when she gets there; at the corpse on the ground, still tethered to a tree branch, at the blood-smeared rough linen of his gown, at his closed hands which are obviously holding an object, an object with brown barbules sticking out past his fingertips, and then she puts down her case.

“Something brought down the  _ Huntsman? _ ” Ashley’s voice is not quite steady.

David’s brow furrows. “You knew Graham?”

“We met once,” she says, shaking her head. “I took an orienteering /survival course years ago. He was the guide.”

Then she straightens up and puts her hands on her hips. “I think you owe me an explanation. Because whatever is being played here, it’s not a game.”

  
  


-/-

  
  
  


Back at the diner, August puts the cruiser in park and shuts off the engine. The man next to him hasn’t said a word the entire drive.

“Hey.” August keeps his voice quiet as he turns to the doctor. “How about we---”

“I always knew there was something,” Victor cuts him off. Toneless and distant. “With Killian and Elsa and the brother who died, I knew there was something.”

He looks up at August, and for the first time, he  _ sees _ him. “I’d read about the cases, of course. I mean - for a while you couldn’t get away from them, you know?”

August does know.  _ Serial killer on the loose. Random, mutilated victims. Unknown cause of death _ . It was in every newspaper, every news cycle, for weeks. For  _ months _ .

And once Will had been killed----

August had known, then and there, that the case was going to get him, and not the other way around. But the notoriety, the constant press, had magnified each loss a hundred times over, until all he could do was disappear away from it all.

“And I’m not stupid,” Victor goes on. “I knew there were things the news didn’t tell us, things Elsa and Killian didn’t tell me, weird things.” He sighs. “Things that were---- odd. Strange, you know? They both seemed to carry something so--- heavy. More than the loss of a loved one.”

His blue eyes get very shiny. August has to actively stop himself from taking Victor’s hand.

“Anyway, I always thought there was  _ something _ .” He shrugs. “And now I know.”

He lifts his hands, only to let them drop back into his lap. It looks utterly helpless.

“Now I know, and I wish I didn’t.”

“I know.” August takes a deep breath, and then he does reach for the doctor’s hand. “Trust me, I know.”

Victor looks up in wonder and doesn’t pull away, and it gives August hope of a kind he hasn’t felt in years.

“Come upstairs,” he whispers. “Let’s go upstairs and have a drink and talk this out. Because that thing is not going to get you, whatever it is. We are going to beat this, if it’s the last thing I do.”

And the doctor looks up and gives him a smile that’s both terrified and hopeful and says, “Good.”

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“And now?”

They have documented the crime scene. Ashley has finished her on-site examination. They have loaded the corpse into her van and watched her drive off and promised to come by later to get her results and tell her what they know.

Mary Margaret looks pale and David looks worried and Killian looks dead on his feet.

“It’s been hours,” Emma answers Mary Margaret’s question. “It’s freezing and none of us have eaten and Killian has boxes worth of files we haven’t even opened yet.” She looks around. “Killian and I will go back to the station and order pizza and get started on my report and his files. David, can you take Mary Margaret home?”

“Don’t even bother,” Mary Margaret says. “I’m coming to the station with you. I know you can’t use me as a cop, because, well - I’m not a cop, but I’m coming. I make very good coffee, and you might need my expertise.” At their puzzled faces she adds, “You have pictures of previous crime scenes, right? Were any of them outside? Is it possible that a tracker could be a helpful second pair of eyes?”

David says, “We can’t ask you to do that,” and Mary Margaret rolls her eyes hard. It’s fast becoming Emma’s favorite expression.

That woman plays her deputy like a fiddle already.

“I don’t want to be home alone,” Mary Margaret says quietly. “And besides - the other two guys took Killian’s car. Which leaves us with exactly one vehicle.”

Well, she has a point. That woman is not a teacher for nothing. 

David says, “You really shouldn’t---” 

And Emma cuts him off. “Of course you can come with us. There will be things we can’t officially share with you, but your input could be valuable, and the safest place to be is the station.”

David blushes as Emma silently dares him to object, and she nods. “Go ahead and start loading the gear. We’ll be right up.”

And then she turns to Killian. 

“There’s a couch at the station,” she says. “You can take a nap while we wait for the pizza.”

He smiles and cups her cheek.

“I’d much rather go to my room. With you.” His smile gets a wicked edge. “To talk about the case, of course.”

“Of course,” she says, and he leans in to kiss her. It’s just as wonderful as it was the first time. When they break apart, he sighs.

“Emma,” he says, and now the laughter is gone from his voice, and it’s so, so earnest. “I know you’re worried, and you have every right to be. And I know now we have to figure out impossible clues and an ancient unknown language and bloody  _ magic _ , and save Victor’s life.” He takes a deep breath. “But this?” His fingers brush past her lips, whisper down her jawline until they tangle in the hair at the back of her neck, warm and sure. “This?” He repeats. “This is not a mistake.”

He kisses her one more time, short, and urgent, and then looks at her and his eyes are burning.

“Nothing that feels so right could ever be a mistake.”

And Emma nods, because she feels the absolute truth of it down to the bottom of her battered soul.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...thank you all so much for your patience.  
> But now the slow burn *finally* caught fire. i hope you enjoyed it. You've all *more* than earned it. :)
> 
> THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!!!!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a _beast_.  
> It clocks in at just over 9.3K words, all of which nearly broke me. 🤣
> 
> But.  
> Also.  
> Hold on to something. _This is where you find out some stuff._

  
  


“Killian. Please. Go lie down.” 

Emma tries to find a balance between kind and firm, but lands somewhat heavily on the latter and softens her tone. 

“Look at all the boxes I have to look at.” She points to everything they’ve carried from his cruiser to the station. “I’ll be at it for hours. You can get some rest.”

She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Be glad I’m not making you go back to your room and sleep in a proper bed.”

“I would make you stay there with me if you did.” Killian’s eyebrow quirks up and for a brief moment he looks mischievous and then he licks his bottom lip. It’s another thing that makes her ache.

The fact that he has this playful, impish side, and probably used to get serious mileage out of a good innuendo and a dose of wicked charm.

The fact that this side has been buried so deep for so long.

It hits her harder than the Cambridge picture did back in Elsa’s living room. That was just an image of someone long gone. Even the animated professor she saw briefly in Killian’s own apartment wasn’t as painful to see. This, here, are the remnants of a whole personality peeking through the cracks, a personality that has been torn apart and locked away and drowned in liquor.

It makes her  _ ache  _ to think of how much damage he has sustained.

Then she realizes with a jolt that she has not answered him, has been staring at him in silence instead, and that his expression has shifted from teasing to doubt and apprehension, and she takes his hand, rubs her thumb across his knuckles.

“Sorry,” she says. “Sidetracked.” She smiles up at him. “You would not have to ‘make me’.” She quirks her own eyebrow, because two can play at insinuation, and because she wants him to know that she is here, with him.

_ This is not a mistake. _

He folds his fingers through hers and returns her smile with a sigh of relief. 

“It’s better if I help you unpack the boxes,” he says. ”Show you how everything is organized and categorized.”

Emma laughs out loud. He really  _ is  _ a professor at heart. It’s wonderful and painful in equal measure.

“Killian,” she answers,  _ not _ rolling her eyes. “First of all. I saw those boxes when I helped you pack them up.” 

An image of his living room rises before her eyes, barren and desolate and so full of sadness, and she fights it down because there is no time for this right now. He squeezes her fingers like he knows she’s thinking troublesome thoughts and once again warmth spreads through her. 

She will never get tired of that feeling.

“And also,” she finally goes on, “it’ll be better if I look at everything with fresh eyes, you know? Completely unbiased. Sometimes a little disorder helps you gain a new perspective.”

“You are a very smart woman, Emma Swan,” he says and  _ beams _ . Like he truly likes how her mind works. The warmth inside Emma grows like a living thing, and very faintly she thinks she can feel-----

“Love?” His voice snaps her back to the present and she doesn’t know what expression is on her face, but it’s making his brow furrow. “Everything all right?”

Emma nods and leads him into the station waiting room, where she points at the couch.

“Do you need a blanket?” She tries to pull her hand from his, but he doesn’t let go.

“What’s wrong?”

His eyes are worried now, and Emma is still blindsided by the fact that he called her  _ love _ like it was the most natural thing in the world, and she can’t---

“Please talk to me.” His voice is a whisper. “Something just happened. What’s wrong?”

If she stays here a second longer with his fingers threaded through hers and his gentle voice and his soft eyes she will start to cry, and she has cried enough these past few days.

Too much.

So she shakes her head and she looks up with a smile and says, “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Her voice is steady. She is proud of that.

He lets go of her hand and runs it up her arm, all the way up to the back of her neck. His eyes are serious, but also tender, and he pulls her towards him very,  _ very  _ slowly, gives her time to back away, but she doesn’t,  _ couldn’t _ , not when he’s looking at her like that.

He bends his head and kisses her, slow and soft and oh so careful, and she wraps her arms around him and wishes they could stay that way forever, because she never wants to let go.

He’s warm and solid and  _ real _ in her arms, and then he wraps himself around her, and it’s so perfect she nearly cries despite everything.

When he pulls back she holds on for dear life and he leans his forehead against hers.

“I am here, Emma,” he whispers. “I am in this. You can tell me anything.”

“I know,” she says, because she does know, because it’s nothing but the truth. But he’s not responsible for her scars. He has enough of his own. 

“I’m fine,” she repeats, and he brushes his nose against hers, kisses her again, and then waits until  _ she _ pulls back.

When she does, it feels like she’s tearing off a part of herself.

She walks over to the cabinet and pulls out a blanket and a pillow and hands them to Killian, who gives her one last figuring look before he sits down on the couch.

“Sleep,” she says. “I’ll save you some pizza.”

“Do you remember back in my room, the first time you came by?” He smiles a wan smile. “I was so hungover and you were ready to haul me down here to lock me up?”

She grins and nods, but his smile falls. “I told you I wished I’d never heard of you.” 

His eyes look sad now. 

“I’m so sorry, Emma.” His voice is quiet, and god, he’s so sincere. He really means it. “I’m so sorry about all of it.” He looks up and it looks like he’s in  _ pain _ . “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it then, but now----”

He swallows hard. 

“Emma, I swear, meeting you is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I know I’m not supposed to say this after just a few days, but I swear, I  _ know it. _ ” 

He takes a deep breath. 

“I know it.” His voice is a whisper now. “I know it, and I am so sorry.”

There is nothing she can do but walk over and sit down next to him and hug him within an inch of his life.

  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  


“I take it you have seen this kind of thing before?”

Victor is sitting on the bed in his room, cross-legged, looking small and out of place with his carefully tousled hair and his expensive suit pants and his button down shirt which is still crisp and perfectly white despite the fact that he’s trudged through a damp forest in November.

August pours two glasses of the scotch he just liberated from Granny’s bar and hands one to the doctor. In the time it takes Victor to take a sip, August has emptied his own glass and refilled it.

He walks over to the armchair by the window and sits down.

“Yeah, you could say that,” August says quietly, and empties his glass again. “I have seen this kind of thing before.”

Victor looks up. “What happened?”

“Nothing that’s going to happen to you.”

The doctor laughs out loud. It sounds bitter and resigned.

“Don’t bullshit me, cop,” he says. “Tell me what happened. Were there others? Did they all get strung up like that?”

August pours himself yet another generous helping and Victor gets up, walks over to him and puts his hand over the glass.

“Stop it,” he says. “I didn’t ask you up here to watch you get drunk. I asked you up here to get some answers.”

There are so many things August could reply to that. So many things he wants to reply to that. Witty comebacks laden with double entendres and flirtatious intimation, or a quick and dirty line leading straight to the point.

He can’t bring himself to do either.

Victor is looking at him with wide, worried eyes, and the words  _ marked for death  _ start caroming around August’s head on a screeching loop, and for a moment all he can see is Will, and Eric, and the first victim, the woman; all of them prostrate, dressed in rough linen, their backs bloody, their hands outstretched, holding a quill.

And then Liam.

Who vanished before three pairs of eyes and became nothing but a pile of ash.

“August?”

His hands are shaking, shaking so hard Victor’s palm on his glass is shaking right with him, and August takes a deep breath. Victor lifts his hand and August drinks as the doctor sits down, this time across from him, at the foot of the bed.

“No,” August grinds out. “They didn’t all get strung up like that. Actually, this is the first one. All the others were on their knees, bent down and forward, as if they were offering up a gift.”

“How many others?” Victor’s voice is a raw whisper.

August shakes his head, but the screeching loop is still rolling. “There was a librarian named Belle who disappeared and then turned up dead with markings all down her back. There was Detective Prince, who was a good man, and amazing at spinning theories from trace evidence. And Detective Scarlet, who was his partner, and---”

August’s voice cuts out and he has to swallow several times before he can go on. Victor is very still, looking at him with large, frightened eyes.

August wishes, truly wishes, his tale was one that ended in hope.

Not despair.

August takes a deep breath. “Scarlet was a very good cop. And an even better man.”

“And Killian’s brother?” Victor’s voice is barely audible now.

“Liam.” The word sits between them like a lead balloon. “My partner. He turned to cinders without fire before our very eyes.”

Victor blinks, and August sighs.

“Look,” he says. “This is not a tale of triumph. Some extremely strange things happened, none of which I can explain, but mostly there were a string of dead people and we never found the culprit and then the murders just stopped.”

He pours another shot, knocks it back, and then fixes Victor with a hard stare.

“I left the Force and tried to forget and now the fucking bastard is  _ back _ , and he’s not going to take anyone else, do you hear me? I have lost enough people to this goddamn psychopath. I am  _ done  _ with it. This time,  _ he  _ bleeds.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


-/-

  
“Did you get him to lie down? Or did you have to knock him unconscious?”

Mary Margaret, it seems, has everybody’s number. Including Killian’s. 

“No force was necessary.” Emma grins. “Although it was a near thing.”

Mary Margaret laughs, and then Emma looks at the boxes, looks at the wall space David is clearing, the whiteboards they’ve already brought in (more boards than the station owns, Mary Margaret has clearly raided the elementary school), and then back at the teacher.

Mary Margaret is currently studying a large satellite area map, on which the tracking points of Graham’s cell phone are marked. It’s an absolute mess. Apparently the Huntsman ran around the woods, woods he knew extremely well, in a mess of spikes and circles and double-backs. For hours.

Even Emma can tell that there is no rhyme nor reason to his movements at all, even when accounting for following nocturnal animals. His tracks span a vast area, and never go in a straight line until they reach the top of the incline leading down to the river.

Then they become a very straight line down, towards the bridge.

Mary Margaret looks at Emma with no small amount of apprehension, and says, “This doesn’t make any sense. None at all. A tourist who’s never seen this forest wouldn’t make this mess.” 

And Emma makes a decision.

“I’m going to deputize you,” she says. “There is no way we can go through all this alone, and also, you’re already looking at some extremely confidential information.” She rolls her eyes at David. “Protected by  _ several  _ privacy laws.” 

Mary Margaret ducks her head and David draws breath, no doubt to defend her, and Emma smiles and holds up both hands in supplication.

“I was not chastising either one of you. Mary Margaret, I think you’d be a valuable asset to this investigation. You have a very useful pair of eyes and a very sharp brain..”

David chokes behind her, and Emma rolls her eyes.

“What would deputizing entail?” Mary Margaret might as well have said,  _ am I going to be able to give David orders? _ and David sputters.

Emma has to bite down hard on a grin.

“You’re not a deputy, like David. But you will be part of this investigation. And you must sign a few very binding legal forms, including a non-disclosure agreement. Which means you cannot talk to anyone about this case. Anyone. Not even your mother.” Emma decides to throw David a bone. “Not even your boyfriend. No one who’s not a cop, working this case. Do you understand?”

Mary Margaret’s eyes are very serious. “My mother passed away when I was a baby,” she says. And even more seriously. “And I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Both women pretend not to hear the massive sigh of relief behind them.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  


“So tell me, doctor. How long you been crushing on Detective Jones?”

Victor rolls his eyes so hard, he nearly falls back onto the mattress. 

“ _ Crushing? _ ” He laughs out loud. “Are you kidding me? You’re a hard-boiled detective pushing 40 and you just used the words  _ crushing on? _ ”

“I’m a hard boiled  _ former  _ detective and you’re evading the question.” 

August watches Victor’s face fall. He doesn’t answer, just shrugs, defeated. 

August sighs. 

“I know about that,” he finally says, quietly. “I liked Will. A lot.”

Victor looks up. “The detective on your task force?”

“Yeah.” August nods. “So, you know--- for what it’s worth, that way only heartbreak lies.”

Victor chuckles. “I know. I do know. But it doesn’t change how I feel.” He smiles. It’s a sad little thing, and August’s chest contracts for a moment. “But if you ever find a way to turn off an emotion, detective, you let me know.”

“Former detective.”

Victor smiles again, and it’s full of empathy. “You keep saying that. But - I don’t think it’s true. You still observe everything around you. You still watch and deduce and recognize patterns and collect information. You may no longer be on the police force, but I think you are very much still a detective.”

August’s eyes get very wet, very fast. He has trouble breathing for a long moment.

Victor winces. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

August laughs and if it sounds more like a sob, Victor doesn’t comment. 

“It’s fine.” He tries to mask a sniff as a chuckle, sees that Victor isn’t fooled and chuckles for real. “You just---- it was a nice thing to say. Thank you.”

Victor nods and shifts. Their knees are almost touching. He leans forward, and suddenly he’s close, so close, and looks straight at August, his eyes kind.

“Why did you leave the Force?” His voice is quiet.

August can’t answer for almost a minute, because there is something hypnotic in the doctor’s gaze and he is powerless before it.

So powerless that he answers with the naked truth. 

“Will died,” he whispers. “He was murdered by this--- this  _ thing _ , and---” He tries to take a deep breath, but his throat is too tight. He feels Victor’s hand pat his knee, but it feels remote, as if his leg isn’t part of his body.

He has to close his eyes.

“There was no point in going on once Will was gone.” August doesn’t just mean the investigation, and he knows Victor heard him, because his hand now squeezes his knee, in a silent show of support.

When he opens his eyes the doctor is still looking at him, blue eyes full of understanding.

August laughs, brittle and dry. “Not that anything was ever going to happen.”

“Don’t I know that feeling.” Victor sighs. “Let me guess. Will was----”

“As straight as they come? Yes. He absolutely was.”

Victor raises an eyebrow and his look turns mischievous. “Come a lot, did you?”

It takes August a full thirty seconds to assimilate this comment.

To realize that Victor is joking with him.

To realize that Victor is  _ flirting  _ with him.

To realize that Victor is fucking  _ funny _ .

And then August stands, pulls the doctor up by his crisply starched white collar and marches him across the room, slams him into the wall as he presses the entire length of his body up against him, and kisses the living daylights out of the surgeon as if tomorrow didn’t matter at all.

  
  


  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“Proto-Celtic!”

Killian bolts upright on the couch, his eyes wide open, the words still echoing through the room. He tries to catch his breath. His head hurts.

But his dream did yield an actual idea. Maybe it is good that he slept.

He gets up and carefully folds the blanket, and then makes his way to the washroom to splash water on his face. The man in the mirror is pale and drawn and desperately needs a shave and a trim. He’s a mess.

Emma deserves better.

He shakes his head at himself and rolls his eyes, because he’s procrastinating, and time is what they don’t have. Forty hours between victims, give or take, since the first one. Less than two days.

When he enters the main room, the sight is somehow unexpectedly breathtaking. The entire far wall is covered with pictures and notecards and press clippings, just like the one in his apartment had been. There are whiteboards with timelines and victim bios, open boxes, open file folders, and three people so immersed in their contents that they don’t notice him at all.

He stands there for a full minute, looking at the sheriff and the deputy and the teacher, sifting through the bane of his existence.

It’s almost too much to bear.

Finally he steps all the way into the room and softly clears his throat.

“Killian! Did you get enough sleep?” Emma turns her head, smiling, but one look at him brings her up short. “Killian? Are you all right?”

She crosses the distance between them in three large strides and he barely has time to register that he has scared her before she is standing before him, lightly rubbing his left arm.

“What happened?” Her voice is soft. Like she’s trying not to spook him. As if he could be spooked.

He looks at her, eyes clear and green and her expression so open, and for a moment he wants to take her and run, run far, far away, and never come back.

Outrun  _ it _ , whatever it is.

It’s a beautiful thought, but that’s all it is. Wishful thinking. And there’s no time like the present. 

“I think I have an idea.” He says it loud enough for everyone to hear, and David and Mary Margaret both look up. “I think I have an idea about the languages. But first, is there any more pizza?”

  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


In the Bangor morgue, Dr Ashley Boyd opens the stainless steel door of mortuary refrigerator compartment 2A, pulls out the castor and transfers the body of Graham Humbert to her examination table. Per her instructions the Huntsman’s remains have been divested of all clothing, but his hands and arms have not been touched. From the wisps of wool fiber gently dancing in the chill of the climate controlled air, Ashley can see that they had to cut upper-body clothes off the victim, and she resolves to give both of her assistants a stern lecture about introducing new evidence into existing closed systems. They should have been more careful.

Fibers shearing off scissor blades are rookie mistakes.

She pulls out her recorder and turns it on.

_ “This is Dr Ashley Boyd, commencing the autopsy on Graham Humbert, November 18th, 11:07 AM.”  _ As she talks she starts to walk around the table, doing her initial visual examination.  _ “Victim is a caucasian male, 37 years old, 5’11”, 179 pounds and 4 ounces, reasonably well---” _

It is at this point Dr Boyd reaches the bottom of the examination table, casually reaches out to check the toe tag, and then catches sight of something odd.

She steps closer and pushes back the toes to get a clear view of the soles of Graham’s feet. She stands there for nearly a minute, just staring.

Then she turns around, goes to her adjacent office, and gets the camera.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“I can’t believe I never thought of it before.”

Killian is sitting cross-legged in front of one of his cardboard boxes, a slice of pizza in his left, digging through files with his right.

“Thought of what before?” Emma is sitting next to him, their knees almost touching.

“That the language might have something to do with the object. Or rather, the target.” He shakes his head. It’s so  _ simple _ . He is so stupid.

“The object?” David says.

“The target?” Mary Margaret says.

Emma’s brow crinkles. “Please explain?”

Killian sighs and looks at her, and then cuts his eyes over to the other two members of their little task force. And then looks back at Emma, hoping she’ll understand.

Emma doesn’t understand. 

David, however, does. 

“If you’re trying to get us to leave the room, forget it,” he says, all Deputy Huff. “We are in this, and I  _ am  _ a police officer, in case you hadn’t noticed. A police officer working this case.”

It’s really endearing how flustered he gets.

“It’s OK,” Emma says, and puts a warm hand on Killian’s wrist. “They have to find out sometime. And we need them.” She turns towards David and Mary Margaret, who - Killian swears - are wearing identical expressions of sheer determination. 

“Look,” she says. “You’re going to be hearing a lot of strange stuff now. A lot.”

“Stranger than people strung up with runes carved on their backs?” David really does love a good snit. Killian nearly smiles.

“ _ Much  _ stranger,” Emma answers. “Way  _ way  _ outside what you think is possible. As a matter of fact, you’re both probably going to think we’ve lost every last one of our marbles.” She holds up a hand, stops David from commenting. “Just go with it, OK? Go with it and we’ll answer all your questions afterwards.”

They both nod, and Killian looks at Emma.

It’s time.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


By the time he has to pull back and catch his breath, August is painfully hard.

“ _ God, _ ” he says, “I’ve been wanting to do that since I got into your car.”

“Don’t stop.” Victor’s voice is a broken whisper. “Please don’t stop.”

His mouth chases August’s but he pulls back further to look at the doctor, really look at him. Victor’s hands are trembling. His breath is erratic, and not from desire, and his eyes have a look of barely concealed panic, and August takes a step back.

“Wait,” he says. “Wait a minute.”

Victor’s hand firmly grabs the front of his pants and August gasps in equal parts pleasure and pain.

“This doesn’t feel like you want to wait,  _ detective, _ ” Victor’s voice is rough. “And there’s no time like the present. I should know, since it turns out that the present is all I have.”

“Stop,” August grinds out as Victor’s hand starts to rub up and down, and it takes August every ounce of willpower to step out of his grasp. “Hang on.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.” Victor lets his head fall back against the wall with a bang. “But you’re making it fucking hard.” He rolls his eyes. “Literally.”

Humor. It turns out humor is Dr Whale’s secret weapon. Go figure.

August takes a deep breath, and exhales long and slow. And then goes for broke.

“Victor,” he says quietly. “This won’t solve anything.”

The doctor grabs him by the lapels and spins them around and slams him into the door. With force. August’s head connects with the frame and his vision sparks for a second. Victor pays no attention to it at all.

“I  _ know _ ,” he hisses, his face so close to August’s he can see specks of grey in Victor’s blue eyes. “Don’t you think I fucking know that? None of this will solve anything. I. Am. Fucked.”

He laughs out loud, and it’s bitterness made sound.

“Or rather,  _ not  _ fucked, since you turned all Emily Post suddenly.”

“Did you---” August sputters. “Did you just compare me to a 19th century  _ socialite _ ?”

“If the Adelaides fit.”

“What?” August’s head is spinning.

“Adelaides were a popular women’s shoe in the late 19th century,” Victor says in a long-suffering voice like he’s explaining Sand Castle 101 to a 5-year-old, and something inside August snaps.

“Fuck you,” he snarls and pushes Victor back so forcibly he stumbles and sits down hard on the bed. “Fuck. You. Fuck you  _ and  _ your prevarication.” August shakes his head. “I am not your goddamn stopgap. You don’t get to use me for one last desperate ride into oblivion while you fantasize about someone else.”

Victor deflates all at once and his shoulders slump until he looks like a heap of pure misery.

“I don’t---” His voice cuts out. He clears his throat several times. 

When he finally looks up, his eyes look defeated. And brimming with tears.

“You’re not a stopgap,” he whispers. “And I wasn’t going to picture anyone else, I promise.” He takes a shuddering breath. “But I  _ was  _ going to use you for one last ride. I’m sorry.”

Tears start to roll down Victors cheeks. August can’t move a muscle.

“Please, August.” Victor’s voice is barely audible. “Please give me this. I need it.”

August crosses the space between them in two long strides, sits down on the mattress next to Victor and grabs him by the shoulders. Hard.

“I am not your coping mechanism,” he says and watches Victor blink. More tears roll. “And you’re not going to need one anyway, because you are going to fucking live. I am not letting you die, if it’s the last thing I ever do. Do you hear me?” He shakes Victor’s shoulders. He sways boneless like a rag doll. “You are going to survive this.”

Victor leans forward, very slowly, and again August can’t move, can’t do a thing until he feels Victor’s lips brush his own, soft and chaste and gentle.

“If I wanted a coping mechanism,” Victor says quietly, “I could have driven to Portland and found the nearest back room. I do want a ride. But--- I want it with  _ you _ . Idiot.”

And then Victor smiles, and August capitulates.

He pulls them both up, mauls Victor’s mouth as he pushes him back, back, back against the door again---

as he rips open the white shirt and listens to the buttons ping across the floor---

as Victor’s hands frantically undo his belt buckle and wander south and oh  _ god---- _

August moans and spins the doctor around and bites his neck, while he pulls down Victor’s pants and then pulls down his own, and then everything is hot and wet and ready and pumping, and downstairs the widow Lucas listens to the rhythmic slams against a wooden door, rolls her eyes, and then turns to ask Dr Hopper whether he wants fries or onion rings with his burger.

Dr Hopper wants both.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“Elsa’s family originally came here from Norway,” Killian says and finally locates the folder he’s looking for. He hands it to Emma and gives her a minute to glance at the report inside.

“It says they were from Trondheim?” Emma looks up and passes the folder to David. Mary Margaret scoots closer to him and looks over his shoulder and Killian can see the deputy go very still, like he’s afraid moving will cause Mary Margaret to back away.

Which is ridiculous. Her chin is nearly on David’s shoulder.

He exchanges a knowing glance with Emma, who smiles at him in such a way that he wants to pull her into his lap and kiss her thoroughly, their audience be  _ damned _ , but there is no time. It’s been 8 hours already, and he shouldn’t have slept.

No.   
It’s good that he did. This idea is the first good theory he’s had in----

This idea is the first good theory he’s had.

Killian nods. “Yes. Trondheim is in central Norway, on the Trondheim Fjord. It was established around 997 as a trading post by Viking King Olaf Tryggvarson.”

Emma smiles and Killian suddenly realizes with absolute certainty that she’s smiling because he remembers obscure dates and arcane details and the names of Viking kings. And that she likes that about him. 

“It has a rich and vibrant Viking history,” Killian goes on, smiling back at her fondly. “And since it was an important trading post, and the only one of its kind so far north, it became a melting pot of early languages, which is how I first heard about it.”

It feels good to finally be able to explain, something. Something tangible, based in fact.

“The name Trondheim alone exists in at least 20 languages from Suomi to Mandarin Chinese, just to give you an idea. But the prevailing factor here is Old Norse. The language of its founders.”

Killian gets up and walks over to the wall, where the photocopies of the first notecards, the ones Liam showed him a lifetime ago, are pinned neatly to the wall.

He’s an idiot.

His inability to make this connection years ago has cost so many lives.

So many lives.

For a moment he can’t breathe and then he feels Emma’s hand on his back. Not moving. Just there.

“Elsa was the first target. I am starting to think the killings were incidental, that they were a means to an end.” His throat is too tight, but he manages to grind out the rest. “ _ Elsa _ was the target, or rather, the magic she had. Has. Had.”

He can hear twin gasps behind him, but they sound far away, because his focus is solely on the cards before him. There are no interruptions, because Emma is probably shushing everyone.

He is so grateful. Her hand is warm and solid on his back.

He lifts his own hand and traces the runes before him and then he turns to Emma. Her eyes are wide, and there is an odd determination in them.

“I think this is a version of Old Norse,” he whispers. “I think they were directed towards Elsa’s origins.” He walks over to the whiteboard where copies of the current case’s notecards hang next to pictures of bloody runes, and lets his fingers once again trail across the letters.

“I think these are targeted towards you.” He looks at Emma even though right at this moment he’d rather look anywhere else. “I think your magic is the target this time---” gasps again, louder this time, and Emma throws up a hand to halt any comments in their tracks--- “and that’s why it’s not Old Norse. That’s why it’s different. Your origin is different.” He takes a deep breath and locks eyes with Emma. 

“Tell me, Emma Swan,” he says, his voice so low that it’s no longer even a whisper. “Is it possible that your ancestors came from the Isle of Man?”

  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  


.

  
  


David’s brain pulls the emergency brake and goes into a tailspin.

This is insane. What they’re talking about is  _ insane _ .

Did he hear the word  _ magic  _ fall?  _ Twice? _

There is strange and then there is impossible and then there is insane, and this is  _ insane _ . It has to be.

He glances at Mary Margaret and she looks perfectly calm. As if people were not losing all their collective--- wait. Isn’t that what Emma said?   
That they’ll think this is crazy?   
Well. Wasn’t that the understatement of the century.

This is insane. 

Great. Now his mind is stuck in a loop.

Killian and Emma are still talking and Mary Margaret appears to be listening intently and he doesn’t care, because where they are diving there is no bottom and it  _ is _ insane and before he even knows what’s happening he finds himself leaning forward and bellowing, “Have you all gone  _ completely  _ around the fucking bend?”

It’s his first f-bomb ever.

Well. His first one in public.

Mary Margaret turns to him with a disapproving slant of her mouth that Professor McGonagall could not have matched and snaps, “David. Now is  _ not _ the time.”

It’s the perfect combination of chagrin and fond exasperation and she is both so much the teacher and the friend at this very moment that David realizes with terrifying clarity that he is hopelessly in love with Mary Margaret Blanchard and wants to spend his goddamn life with her after only knowing her these past few days.

Well, 8 months and 27 days plus the past few days.

And that is insane as well.

This does not bode well for any kind of rational behavior in his future.

But he can’t pay attention to how insane all these things are right now because Mary Margaret is looking at him like she’s an x-ray machine and he’s, well, David, in the flesh, and he couldn’t look away if he tried. Killian and Emma fade at the periphery of his vision and what remains is the woman before him, her smile dazzling, her eyes knowing, and then she winks at him.

She  _ winks _ .

And David’s life suddenly has a meaning it’s never had before.

Then Mary Margaret turns back to Emma and Killian and says, “ Go on.”

As if nothing happened.   
As if David’s life hasn’t just changed in every single aspect ever.

He nearly laughs. But he doesn’t want another reprimand.

“Why the Isle of Man?” Emma is spooked. Her voice is not quite steady. She is very good at putting on a brave face, but this whole thing has shaken her down to the foundations.

“Because if the writing in my former case was based on Old Norse, then the writing in your case could be Proto-Celtic. Or rather, attempting to be Proto-Celtic.”

“I don’t understand.” Emma’s voice is shaking now, and David thinks what he wouldn’t give to just wave a magic wand and make this case disappear.

_ Wave a magic wand _ . He  _ is _ going insane after all.

Killian nods. “Look, this is all conjecture, obviously, but let’s assume - for the moment - that you are the target of all these runes. They are meant to evoke or channel or siphon energy from you.”

David is very glad Killian says energy, and not magic. He’s also amazed at the change in the detective. He is every inch a professor now, limbs loose and hands moving; animated, spirited, energized - he hardly recognizes the man.

Then Emma looks at Killian and he simply reaches for her hand. She visibly calms down and David can see that they are connected by more than just attraction.

A lot more.

  
  


“Imagine there was someone out there who wanted to harness your powers and to do so had to somehow tap into the primal part of your beginnings, your origins. In Elsa’s case, that would have been Old Norse. In your case, it looks like Proto-Celtic, which was first spoken on the Isle of Man. Or rather, our first evidence of it is found on the Isle of Man. It would make sense, too.”

The last sentence he says nearly to himself.

“The Isle of Man is a place full of old magic. Its history is full of stories of  _ mooinjer veggey  _ and spirits and  _ buggane _ and---” Killian looks up, clearly only now noticing that he’s lecturing them, and using terms they cannot possibly know, and he cringes. David watches Emma’s eyes grow very soft as she looks at him, watches her take a step closer and squeeze his hand, and then sees Killian relax and straighten back up and exhale a long breath. 

“I meant, it has a history full of faeries and ogres and spirits and places imbued with ancient magic.” Killian smiles a self-deprecating smile in David and Mary Margaret’s direction, before he turns back to Emma and says, “Is it possible? Could your forebears have come from the Isle of Man?”

David leans forward. He can’t help it. For as long as he’s known Emma Swan, which is ever since she showed up in Storybrooke 15 years ago, he has never heard her talk about herself, her family, or her past. He has given up trying to elicit information from her years ago, because at best Emma won’t answer prying questions, and at worst she will get snappish and withdrawn, and he hates all of the above. 

Emma shudders and doesn’t answer for a long moment and then finally she says, “I don’t know. I was found by the side of a road. I have no idea where I come from.”

The room goes silent.

Nobody moves, nobody speaks-- it seems like nobody even breathes, until Killian takes a step forward and puts their intertwined hands over his heart and whispers quietly, “I’m so sorry, love.”

And then a loud, persistent series of beeps sounds out and David gets up to check his computer while Emma says, “ME urgent findings alert”.

David pulls up Ashley’s email and then looks up at three pairs of apprehensive eyes staring at him. He scans the report.

“Seems like the doc found something on--- wait a minute. That can’t be right.” 

They all walk over to him until they’re standing behind him like a freaking gallery and reading over his shoulder (David  _ loathes  _ people reading over his shoulder, unless it’s Mary Margaret leaning in closer, then he doesn’t hate it), and Emma says, “Ashley found something on Graham’s feet?”

“The soles of his feet, it seems,” David answers. “That’s ridiculous. Who goes through the trouble of taking off a victim’s shoes and socks, carves symbols into them, and then puts the socks and the shoes back on?”

Emma steps aside to let Killian get a better look and answers, “it makes very little sense. But it also says there are beginning signs of  _ healing? _ Which means those wounds were inflicted very much  _ ante mortem _ . By a sizeable amount of time.”

“At least 24 hours.” Killian squints at the screen and adds, “She says she can’t be sure, but that’s her best professional guess.” He finally leans back, giving David some space. “I think your ME is eminently competent. I believe we can assume her guess is correct.”

“How?” It’s Mary Margaret who speaks, and David has never heard her sound so scared. She sounds  _ small _ . “How on earth could Graham have gotten the soles of his feet carved up a day before he died? And go about his life as if nothing happened? How could he not have noticed?”

“Well, you very rarely look at the _soles_ of your---” David starts and Mary Margaret cuts him off.

“Are you seriously saying you wouldn’t notice it if I took a scalpel to your insoles?”

“The cuts weren’t that deep.” Emma has wandered over to her own computer and presumably pulled up the same email, and now Killian is leaning over  _ her _ shoulder, and that is much better.

Then Emma looks at David, brow furrowed. “Could it be done? Was he a heavy sleeper? Or maybe he got dosed with a sedative? The cuts are superficial, it says here, more scratches than actual wounds.”

“He  _ was  _ a heavy sleeper,” Mary Margaret says, and David’s heart drops to somewhere between his knees. “We went on a hunting retreat every year, the whole club. Camping, out in the woods, you know? Graham once slept through four absolutely wasted men singing at the top of their lungs for an hour.”

And just like that David’s heart slots back into place.

“So yes,” Mary Margaret goes on, “He was a heavy sleeper. But I still think he’d wake up if someone carved markings into the soles his feet.” Her eyes narrow. “What’s the attachment?”

“The official report,” David says.

“No, not that.” Mary Margaret points to the header. “Next to it. Your ME sent a picture.”

And David clicks on it.

It’s a picture of the symbol carved into Graham’s skin, and contrary to the runes they’ve been faced with, this is a symbol he has seen before. A stylized triple spiral, in the shape of a symmetrical pyramid. The inner space forms a triangle.

“A  _ triskelion? _ ” Killian says, and his voice sounds strangled. “There were triskelions carved into Graham’s  _ feet? _ ”

This obviously means something to the detective, but David cannot pay any attention to that because next to him Mary Margaret has gone completely still. 

She just stares and stares, eyes narrow, brows crinkled; her shoulders stiff, her mouth a thin line. And then she says, “Does anyone have a grease pen?”

David scrambles to get one from his drawer and Mary Margaret takes it, walks over to the wall, to the satellite image of Graham’s cell phone pings, marking all of his tracks before he died, and then draws the connecting lines, and there it is.

The rhyme and reason to his movements.

His tracks are one large triskelion.

  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  
  


“Wait,” Emma says. “Wait, please. Wait.” 

She shakes her head to clear it. There are all these clues, and they all look like they should fit a larger picture, like they are pieces of a puzzle , and all they do is just muddy the waters. She can feel her brain overloading.

In the end it’s David who breaks the silence. “What is a triskelion? What does it mean?”

Killian scratches behind his right ear as he answers, a sign Emma can now identify as one of distress. “Bear in mind that I am not a historian,” he says. “So all of this explanation will be rather crude.”

Emma nearly laughs.

_ Not a historian. _ Killian is one the most educated men in the county, probably the state. Maybe the country. None of his case research, nor his explanations, could ever be considered crude.

Only a professor would judge his own knowledge this harshly.

“The word triskelion comes from the Greek,  _ triskeles _ , meaning three-legged.” Killian’s voice is thoughtful and he looks almost preoccupied. As if his brain was chasing down an elusive thought while explaining the mundane. “It was prevalent throughout the European Neolithic and Bronze Age, but originally the symbol consisted of three literal legs, arranged in a circle. It’s found on Ancient Greek pottery and later appears in heraldry and many other iterations, but since the Iron Age its use has centered most significantly in the Celtic culture, where its name is  _ ny tree cassyn _ .”

He looks up.

His gaze is clear and unflinching.

“Emma,” he says. “Its most explicit and definitive association today is with a very specific place.” He looks at her almost in apology. “It is the symbol for the Isle of Man.”

  
  


“Wait.”

Emma feels like her brain is caving in on itself. There is too much information and none of it leads anywhere useful.

Every piece just adds to the mystery and now there is a whole component which might pertain to  _ her, _ but she knows nothing about her own past, nothing about herself other than what she can remember, and for a moment she feels so useless and desperate that she wants to scream in sheer frustration.

Killian looks at her full of worry and empathy. He’s trying so hard to make this as easy as possible, but there is no way to lift this burden for her. Things weigh what they weigh.

Emma takes a deep breath.

_ Start with something tangible. Something logical. Pick a thread, an actual thread, and see where it leads. _

_ Be Ariadne. _ _  
_ _ Find the minotaur. _

Oh god, mythology is starting to rub off on  _ her _ .

  
  


“Let’s forget about Graham and the symbols for a second,” she says, her voice almost steady. “You said the killings were incidental. That they were a means to an end.”

Killian nods. She has his full attention.

“And that the first ‘end’, if you will, was Elsa.”

He nods again. Everyone is looking at her, spellbound.

“Then why those people? Why kill those  _ particular  _ people? To get to Elsa?” 

She clears her throat and wishes to every god she doesn’t believe in she didn’t have to say this next part. But she does.   
“Liam---” Her voice cuts out, and she tries again. “Liam I understand.” 

Killian’s face twists and her vision gets blurry as tears start to fill her eyes.

“I’m so sorry. I’m not trying to hurt you.”

He nods and very gently takes her hand, takes her hand to comfort her  _ while she’s talking about the death of his brother, _ and she feels like her soul might crack and shatter.

It takes her a long moment to go on.

“But why the others? Why Detective Scarlet and Detective Prince and--- who was the woman again? Belle something? Why them?” She sniffs and blinks her tears away. “What do they have to do with Elsa?”

“That’s a really good question.” Once again Killian’s eyes drift away, unfocused, lost in thought. “The only connection we could ever establish was---- the case. Except of course for the librarian. I think the assumption was that the culprit was taking down the task force because they were getting too close.”

He looks at Emma, eyes back in focus.

“I wasn’t part of the police force then, just the consultant, so I don’t know exactly what the hypothesis was, but from what Liam said, it was something along those lines.”

“But that doesn’t track, does it,” Emma says, and Killian shakes his head. 

“If Elsa was the target, it had to have something to do with  _ her _ .”

Killian nods. “Or Liam. Maybe they were trying to get to Elsa through Liam. They were married, after all. And Liam was killed in an entirely different way from all the others.”

Emma wants to ask how.

There is nothing in the files on how exactly Liam Jones died. 

But she can’t ask.   
Not now. Not Killian. She won’t put him through this. 

Maybe August will tell her. Later.

Instead she nods and squeezes his fingers. He squeezes back. Hard. 

“That would explain the detectives,” she says, slowly. “But not the woman. How on earth does she fit into the puzzle?”

“She was Will’s girlfriend,” a voice says from the door. “They’d just started going out. I was the only one who knew.”

August saunters into the room, Victor trailing behind him, both men looking somewhat disheveled.

“ _ What? _ ” Killian’s eyes narrow as he fixes them on August. “Will went out with the first victim? How on earth are you only bringing this up now? IT’S BEEN YEARS.”

He’s yelling. Emma squeezes his hand again, and he takes a deep breath.

“It wasn’t pertinent.” August’s face is blank. “They’d only been dating a few weeks. But he was fucking gaga about the girl already, came into work with puppy dog eyes every day and would  _ not  _ shut up about her.”

He rolls his eyes. Killian watches Victor nonchalantly walk over to August and stand next to him. Stand very closely next to him.

August quirks a small grin and then looks straight at Killian. His gaze is sharp, his mouth a hard line. “And then she went missing, and Will went bonkers. Couldn’t get in on the case so he searched for her himself, and I don’t know how on earth he kept it from Eric, but - well, you know.” He sighs. “Eric was unbeatable when it came to combining evidence with hunch to come up with a theory, but he was a bit, well----”

Killian remembers Eric Prince - young, smart, articulate, and with just enough ambition to provide ample drive, but not so much as to dip into opportunism, mostly because he was nothing if not pragmatic. Back on the task force he had hyper-focused on the puzzle to the exclusion of all else - a trait Killian was told was Detective Prince’s trademark.

Killian nods. “I know. Not exactly observant of his surroundings.”

August tries to smile and fails. 

But he does go on. “Anyway. The Belle girl turned up dead and Will  _ lost  _ it. Swore me to secrecy, because he was never going to get anywhere near the case with a personal connection to the victim, and when Liam and I got assigned the homicide, he marched straight into the Chief’s office and convinced him it needed a task force. I have no idea how on earth he got King Midas to agree, but he walked out with himself and Eric attached to the case.”

“King Midas? Your chief’s name was  _ Midas? _ ” David sounds as incredulous as Killian did the first time he’d heard that name.

August turns to the deputy. “Former detective with a stellar career. Youngest police chief of all time. He got the nickname because everything he touched turned to gold. Man could do no wrong.” He looks back at Killian. “Except for assigning us all to this goddamn case, and don’t I wish every day that he hadn’t, because then Will would still be alive.”

Killian looks at August as if seeing him for the very first time. Looks at Victor, standing so close to August, who surreptitiously wipes his eyes with his left while searching for his flask with his right. Watches August take a long pull, watches Victor gently take the flask from him afterwards, and then realizes.

Jesus Christ. August was right. Killian doesn’t notice  _ shit _ .

“Anyway.” August clears his throat. “That is the story of how all the fucking victims were connected to Liam after all. Including the librarian.”

There is a long moment of silence and then David gets up and walks over to the whiteboard. 

“And you’re saying Emma is the new target?” He sounds equal parts scared and determined. “But it doesn’t make sense. She had nothing to do at all with Graham. Did you?”

Killian looks at Emma, and for a moment a spike of pure jealousy rises in Killian’s gut, but then Emma shakes her head, and it subsides. He almost laughs. 

It’s too ridiculous, this normal, run-of-the-mill rivalry in the middle of this insanity. Rivalry with a dead man. He should be ashamed of himself.

“And Emma and I never met before last night.” It’s the first thing Victor has said at all, and five pairs of eyes snap to his face. 

He looks at Killian. Gives him a self-deprecating smile.

“Well, you know.” Victor shrugs. “Might as well name the elephant in the room.”

“It’s not going to get you,” August whispers, and again Killian is overwhelmed by the fact that apparently he is no better than Eric was, and doesn’t notice things until they are shoved straight into his face.

He should give his badge back.

“Either way,” Victor says, “we’ve known each other barely 24 hours. That cannot be a connection worth exploiting.”

“What about Leroy?” David says. Killian can see him straining to remain calm. “Did you know Leroy, Emma?”

And Emma  _ nods _ .

“Yes,” she says and fear drops into Killian’s stomach like a ball of lead. “I knew him. I knew his brothers, too, but I knew Leroy best. He was the boyfriend of the woman who ran the group home where I stayed the longest. I saw him every day for two years, back when I was a teenager.”

She shudders. The fear inside Killian turns to ice.

“The woman died and we were all transferred and he disappeared.” Emma’s voice is a whisper, and god--- Killian just wants to wrap her up and keep her safe and never let go. Instead he stands still as a statue, just holding her hand, while she goes on. “He and a few of his brothers ended up at the docks about a year ago, and he was in bad shape. They all were. I got them into the halfway house, got him into counseling. He was sober and was really starting to do well, and---”

A small sob escapes her and Killian finally steps forward and puts his arm around her and she presses her face into his chest as her shoulders shake, and he just hugs her tightly.

“So there’s a connection there,” David whispers. It rings in Killian’s ears like a death knell.

Emma pulls back, looks up at Killian, and presses a small kiss to his neck, before she wipes her eyes and steps back.

It feels like loss.

“There’s the matter of touch,” she says, her voice once again calm and steady, and  _ god _ , she’s magnificent. “Graham probably touched Leroy. Victor touched Graham.” Her eyes cut to the doctor and she cringes. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Victor nods. “You’re reciting facts. Go on.”

She takes a deep breath.

“From what I can tell from your files and August’s story, it’s very likely that Eric touched Belle.” 

David’s brow furrows. “Where did you get that?” 

“He was going out with the ME.” Mary Margaret’s voice rings out clear as a bell, and Killian looks up in surprise. He’d completely forgotten she was there.

She bites her lip, but then points towards the wall. “You can tell by the nature of his report and his findings. The coroner’s evidence he listed is incredibly detailed. But also--- the ME’s findings are recorded and time stamped. You can see it in the transcripts. Some of the recordings were done very late at night, two or three AM, and yet their results appear in Detective Prince’s reports and logs first thing the next morning. Before they were even transcribed.”

She shrugs, a little abashed.

“There’s only one logical explanation for that.”

Killian has to resist the temptation to slap his forehead, because  _ Jesus Christ  _ they are all  _ so stupid _ , but August bursts out laughing.

“Oh my god,” he says, shaking his head. “How are you a school teacher? How are you not the next Sherlock Holmes?”

And then Victor says, “Elementary school, my dear Watson,” and all of them stare at the doctor for a long moment and then  _ everyone  _ laughs out loud.

August’s hand briefly squeezes Victor’s ass, and Killian cannot believe he has been this blind.

  
  


When they’re finally done, Emma reaches for Killian’s hand again, and the warm, golden sense of safety and belonging comes on so strong, they both stare at each other for a full minute before she turns and says, “Belle is where we should start.”

Killian squeezes her hand. “How do you mean?”

“We have touch as a connection for everyone but the very first victim. Right? Will found Eric’s body, didn’t he? It is reasonable to assume he did what Graham and Victor did -- look for a pulse first.” 

Killian nods. As does everyone else.

“So. That leaves the first victim. In my case, there is a connection to Leroy.” She shudders, but presses on. “Now - we have a link between Belle and Will, and it’s tempting to leave it at that.” She looks over at August. “I get why you didn’t tell on him, but I don’t think Detective Scarlet is the link. I think there’s a connection between Belle and Elsa. And we have to find it.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being so patient and lovely and supportive.  
> You are WONDERFUL, ALL OF YOU. 💕💕💕


	10. Chapter 10

“Is Elsa coming?”

August and Victor are both looking at Killian as he puts away his phone and nods. 

“She’ll be here in the morning.”

“What time is it now?” Emma asks, and Victor says, “T minus 29 hours until it’s my turn. Give or take.”

The sentence lands like a lead balloon and the entire room falls silent.

Until August says, “That’s not funny, Doc.” Then he looks up at Emma and adds, “It’s a little past 8 PM.”

_ 8 PM _ , Emma thinks.  _ Just 12 hours ago we were making our way down a hillside towards a corpse and our doom and we had no idea. _

“I say we adjourn,” Victor says. “We’re all hungry and tired and we’re not going to get anything else done tonight.”

There’s a chorus of protest and he holds up his hand. 

“I’m a  _ doctor _ ,” he says. “Do you really want me to go into a lengthy explanation of brain chemistry versus sleep deprivation, or will you just fucking believe me and do what your  _ doctor ordered? _ ”

August’s eyes get very soft as he gently punches Victor’s shoulder and says, “Now  _ that  _ was funny, Doc.”

And then he takes Victor by the hand and pulls him from the station almost at a run.

Emma looks at Killian and smiles, because it’s comforting how some things never change, and oh, the look he gives her in return.

It makes  _ David  _ blush. Across the room.

  
  


“I bet they can find a  _ much _ better use for their time.” Mary Margaret rolls her eyes and grins. “And I agree with the doctor. I think we all could do with a break.” 

David feels another atomic blush start to creep up his neck. This whole freshly-cooked lobster impression his skin insists on doing he could truly live without. Especially since Mary Margaret is looking straight at him now, eyebrows raised in silent question.

From out of the corner of his eye David can see Emma and Killian very much not looking at them, and then he hears Emma’s voice, as she says, “Take me home?”

Killian quietly replies, “Of course, love.” and Emma does not flinch at the last word.

Instead she beams at Killian. Her whole face lights up. Happy.

Killian smiles back, and even David can see how much the man has changed in just these few days. He is no longer the husk he first encountered at the diner; empty, weary, sardonic, and incredibly hungover. The man slouched at the counter that morning could not have smiled like that.

Emma nods at David and checks her watch. 

“Let’s meet back here at 9 tomorrow morning,” she says, and then gives him a wicked grin. “If you two want to join us for breakfast, we’ll be at the diner around 8. But we understand if you can’t make it.”

And with that parting shot they leave, while Mary Margaret bursts out laughing and David’s face once again attempts to emulate the sun.

He tries to take a deep breath and say something coherent, anything at all, really, while Mary Margaret’s chuckle fades and she once again looks at him, eyebrows raised in amusement.

He can’t think of anything.

Nothing a thing.

And then she sighs. Shakes her head. Takes one step forward and then another, until they’re almost touching, and then she smiles an absolutely brilliant smile.

“So, David Nolan,” she says. Still smiling that thousand-watt smile. The kind that could light up an entire village. “Are you going to make me wait the whole night, or are you finally going to kiss me?”

And David decides that words are maybe not what this situation needs at all.

Action is.

He can do action.

  
  


Outside, in front of the station, Killian and Emma hear Mary Margaret’s happy squeal being cut off midway through and Killian quirks his left eyebrow suggestively.

Emma laughs out loud. Oh, that man can  _ definitely _ get serious mileage out of a good innuendo. But he is not the only one.

“ _ Finally _ ,” she says. “Wasn’t that a long time coming.”

“It was.” Killian takes a step forward and puts his arms around her, wraps  _ himself  _ around her, tightly, and it feels ridiculously  _ right _ . His lips brush hers gently. “So was this.” And then he kisses her.

Thoroughly.

When they pull apart she’s lightheaded and cannot wipe the stupid grin from her face. Not that she wants to. He leans his forehead against hers, their noses touching, his lips ghosting across her cheek, and it takes her forever to get her bearings. When they finally start walking, he keeps his arm around her waist, her body pulled tightly into his side, and it’s so easy, the way their strides match and their rhythm syncs up, the way he keeps nuzzling her neck and smiling. He’s happy. She can tell he’s happy.

Hell, people in Canada can probably tell he’s happy.

It makes her feel light and buoyant and hopeful -- even amidst all this threatening doom. 

When they get to her house she can barely open the door before he pushes her inside, slams it closed with his heel and kisses her absolutely breathless, and when he pulls back his pupils are blown wide and she can feel him, hard as a rock against her. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out, nothing but his ragged breathing, and Emma slowly lets her hand wander down his breastbone 

and lower

and  _ lower _

until she feels him, wraps her hand around him, and he groans

helpless 

_ helpless  _

and she grins up at him, unrepentantly.

And strokes him.

Once.

The sound he makes is  _ feral _ .

With a growl he picks her up and marches her down the hallway as she wraps her legs around him and kisses his neck, his pulse point, his collarbone, and then he stops, whispers a strangled, “Which door?”, and she doesn’t look up, bites his jaw and points left, and with a snarl he twists the handle and takes two more strides and then finally, finally, they’re on the bed

their limbs tangled

their lips trailing fire

their hands frantically pulling fabric, pulling buttons, pulling belt loops and buckles and bra clasps, and then he stills above her

and she nearly sobs because god, she’s aching 

she’s  _ ready  _

and she lifts her hips, rubs herself down his cock and he groans as he enters her 

_ AllAtOnce _

_ GodItFeelsGoodYES _

_ WhereHaveYouBeenAllMyLife _

_ I’veWaitedSoLong _

_ ForThis _ _  
_ _ ForYou _

She can feel it, from the tips of her toes to the top of her hairline, as she comes,

she  _ comes--- _

And suddenly there is a spark - warm, glowing, golden - it erupts from her hands, shoots jets of light from her fingers,

envelops them

lifts,  _ lifts  _ them halfway off the mattress, 

and she screams as he lets go

and they shudder

and they shake

and they collapse, fall back down, boneless and spent.

  
  


They lie there for minutes, just trying to catch their breath, and then she turns to look at his face. There are tears in his eyes.

Tears.

“Emma,” he whispers. Just that. Just her name. But she knows what he’s saying, knows it in the marrow of her bones and the bottom of her damaged, lonely, fortified heart, she knows.

And so she simply nods, and kisses him softly, and then pulls the covers over both of them.

  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


In a quirky house on the outskirts of Boston, Elsa Jones rubs her tired eyes, looks at the clock, and calculates the time she has left to sleep before she has to leave. No matter which way she counts, it’s barely five hours. She sets her alarm, shucks off her shoes, and curls up on the couch with the afghan.

There really is no point in going to bed.

  
  


-

  
  


Twisted into tangled sheets in a New England country-style room at Granny’s, two men lie wrapped around each other, one dark-haired, one fair.

They have both given up pretending to be asleep, and try to enjoy just being together for now. Fingertips run lightly over warm skin, their breaths come slow and evenly.

“He is not getting you,” the dark-haired man says, for perhaps the tenth time.

The blond man smiles, just like he has all nine times before. 

“Good,” he says. Then he looks up. “Stay,” he adds. “Please stay.”

The dark-haired man nods. “I was never going to leave.”

The blond man smiles again.

“That’s even better,” he says. “I was never going to let you go.”

  
  
  


-

  
  


And in a charmingly messy cabin bedroom on the outskirts of town, a teacher and a deputy lie spooned together under a checkered bedspread, fast asleep; another dark head and fair one, on the same pillow.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


Killian very slowly takes Emma’s hand and threads his fingers through hers. He knows she’s awake, even though her eyes are closed. He pulls their hands up to kiss her knuckles and she smiles and slowly opens her eyes.

“Hey,” she says. Quiet and soft.

“Hey,” he answers. Just as quiet and soft.

“Are you OK?”

He nods. He is so much better than OK. He’s wonderful.

“I’m good, love,” he says, and notices how again, she doesn’t flinch.  _ So  _ wonderful. “You?”

She nods, and her smile gets wider. 

“I’m very good,” she says. “Except that I really want some hot chocolate.” 

She sits up, squeezes their entwined fingers.

“Want to go make some hot chocolate?” 

He does.

  
  


Twenty minutes later they are curled up on the couch, in pyjamas and blankets, each with their own mug of what Killian thinks must be the most sinfully delicious thing he’s ever tasted, short of Emma, and then he remembers---

“That light before,” he blurts out. “Did I--- did I imagine that?”

Emma sighs and takes a long sip before she sets the cup down on the coffee table and looks up at him.

“No,” she shakes her head. “No, something definitely happened.”

“Do you think----” He can’t bring himself to say it out loud. He doesn’t want to spook her.

“I don’t know.” Her voice is a whisper now. “There was a---- it felt like a spark, and suddenly there was  _ power _ . Energy, you know?”

He nods.

“I don’t know what it was.” 

He can feel her uncertainty as she speaks, feel her hesitation. Her brow crinkles. He kisses the furrow, then leans his forehead against hers. 

“Don’t be afraid,” he says. “It’s OK.”

She sighs and closes her eyes. “Whatever it was, it  _ ignited _ , somehow. Or at least that’s what it felt like. And then it--- it just---”

“Shot from your fingers?”

“Yeah.” She pulls back and rolls her eyes. “But that’s crazy, right?”

He shakes his head. “No, Emma. I felt it. You felt it. It lifted us  _ off the bed _ .” He smiles at her. “Whatever it was, it was real. And you are not crazy.”

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


In her Bangor morgue, Dr Ashley Boyd slowly closes the lid of a hard case filled with evidence bags and notes and flash drives. She clicks the clasps shut and grabs her coat and then carefully wheels the case out to her car.

The thump of her trunk lid slamming shut on top of the case echoes across the empty parking lot as she methodically opens the driver’s side door and starts the car. She sits there for almost a minute, engine idling, lost in thought.

Then she puts the car in gear and turns its nose towards Storybrooke.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“You asked me about my ancestors.”

They’ve been silent for many long minutes, and Killian nearly jumps when Emma speaks again. He tightens his arms around her. What he wouldn’t give for a moment of solace, for a time-out, for the chance to just be together, just enjoy each other for a little longer.

She folds her hand through his and squeezes, as if she heard him, as if she knew what he’s thinking, and he can feel her want it, too.

But time waits for no one.

“I did.” He kisses the top of her head as she sighs. “It’s a theory.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t help. I’m sorry I don’t know anything.”

Even in his embrace he can feel her shoulders slump, and he tightens the arm around her waist as he pulls their entwined hands up to his heart.

“Emma,” he says. He loves saying her name. “Please don’t apologize. None of this is your fault.”

She looks up and her eyes are suspiciously shiny.

“I don’t-----” Her voice cuts out and she clears her throat. “I feel useless.”

It hurts something deep inside of him, the way she says that. The way he can feel true pain leak through these few words.

He kisses her gently and squeezes her fingers again, and then reaches up to cup her cheek.

“You could never be useless,” he says. “You matter. You matter to me.”

A choked sob escapes her and then she’s kissing him, hard.

Minutes pass before she pulls back, her eyes still wet, but her smile wide and genuine.

“You’re never going back to your room at Granny’s, by the way,” she says. “You’re stuck with me now.”

His heart does a truly wonderful and terrifying leap and he has to take a second or fifteen to remember how to breathe before he can nod and say, “Good. That’s good.”

And then he has to hug her again.

“I think the hot chocolate is no longer hot,” she finally says, pointing her chin at the mugs on the coffee table after another long bout of silence.

He doesn’t care at all.

He has his arms full of Emma. That’s better than anything else.

“We’ll make more later,” he says and then pulls back to look at her. “Would you like to tell me what you do know?”

Her brow furrows. “How do you mean?”

He smiles. “About your past. About your beginnings. The things you know about it.” 

She bites her lip and he hastens to add, “Only if you want to, of course. Not if it causes you pain, love.”

“No, it’s OK,” she says, and relaxes against him. “There’s not that much to tell, and----” She takes a deep breath. “I don’t mind sharing it with you.”

He knows the magnitude of this gift she’s giving him.   
Knows that this is a big thing for her.

Waits until she speaks again.

“There’s not much to tell.” Her voice is matter-of-fact. “I was found by the side of a highway. A country road, not an interstate - not far from Portland. The police report actually doesn’t state which one, so I’m not altogether sure, even though I’ve spent--- well, some time trying to figure it out.”

She shudders and he tightens his arms. 

“Are you cold?” He whispers.

“No.” She shakes her head. Burrows deeper into the blanket. “These are just very old ghosts. I’m fine.” Still that calm, neutral voice.

It takes her a few moments, before she goes on.

He just waits.

“Anyway,” she finally says, “I was found by a random boy taking a shortcut home from school. He thought I was a toy at first, or at least that’s what the papers said. They didn’t identify the boy by name, and neither did the police report, since he was a minor. Only seven years old, I believe. Which is odd, because what 7-year-old walks home from school alone?” Her voice sounds far away now, very much lost in thought. “Not that it matters,” she goes on. Back to matter-of-fact. “He found me and I guess he realized I was an actual human baby once I started crying, and so he carried the basket I was in to the nearest adult. And thus I entered the system.”

Something cold and hard tightens in his stomach at those words, at the meaning behind them, and he buries his nose in her hair.

“I’m so sorry love,” he says softly. 

She chuckles a dry, mirthless laugh. “It is what it is.”

He half expects her to go rigid, to close off, but instead she exhales a long breath and relaxes into his embrace, leans her head against his shoulder, her fingers playing idly with the folds of his sleeve.

“There’s not much else to tell.” Her voice is pensive now, quiet, and he’ll take that over her eerie neutral any day. “There was a string of foster homes and group homes and failed escapes.” Again that mirthless chuckle. “They always catch you.” She shrugs. “No matter how fast or how far you run.”

There’s nothing he can say.   
All he can do is hold her tightly and hope she feels that he’s here. With her.

Especially since he is busy trying  _ not _ to imagine what would compel a teenager to run away, to  _ want _ to exchange a roof over her head for a life on the streets. He  _ can’t  _ imagine it, because he’ll go mental, and that is not what Emma needs.

“But the last time they caught me, I ended up in a holding cell in Bangor,” she goes on and snaps his thoughts back out of the screeching loop of cruel siblings and bullies and predatory foster fathers. “And that’s where I met Ashley.” She smiles. “Dr Boyd, you know?”

He nods and she shifts slightly, lets her hand wander down his arm, puts it on his.

“She just happened to be at the station. She was doing her residency at Portland Mercy, was just contemplating going into forensic medicine, and happened to be in Bangor that day, for a meeting with the coroner. I was waiting to be processed out and she sat down next to me on the bench and just started talking to me. She asked me what I was doing there and I told her. I thought it would shut her up, but instead she started to ask me lots of questions. Most of them hypothetical. Like, what did I think of the criminal justice system, and the duties of law enforcement, and so on.” 

She chuckles again, and this time it’s genuine. 

“Anyway, I was bored, and the woman from child services was taking forever, and so I answered every one. And after Ashley was done asking me all these questions she said -- and I will never forget this -- she said, ‘You’re too smart to be this stupid, kid.’ She told me to stop fucking around, and to tough it out and stop running away, and that I had a great future in law enforcement ahead of me. And that I should become a sheriff, not a cop. She said I would do well in a self-contained space where I could make my own decisions, and that a metropolitan precinct would just grind me up and spit me back out.”

This time she laughs out loud, and so does he.

“She certainly had your number,” he says.

“She certainly did.” Emma nods. “And thank my lucky stars she did, because for once in my life, I took someone’s advice. And she turned out to be right. Of course. It’s really infuriating just how often she’s right.”

He has to take a deep breath because again he’s  _ not  _ thinking of things, things like how they never would have met if she hadn’t ended up on a police station bench in a medium-sized town in Maine of all places, and he whispers, “I’m so glad you’re here.” 

She leans up, kisses his jaw, his neck, his collarbone, and he bends down, catches her lips, soft and warm and wonderful against his.

Warm and wonderful.

_ Warm. _

That golden warmth spreads through him again, and finds an answering glow in Emma, and they both look at her hands, sparking, humming,  _ luminous _ \---

Light threads through her fingers, curls up her arms, almost playful, and he reaches out, can’t  _ not _ reach for her, and when his hand touches hers the light explodes, becomes a focused, powerful beam, shooting straight at the wall, and for a moment

one 

brief 

endless 

moment

the wall disappears 

and there is darkness

and wind

and the roll of thunder

and the crash of waves

and the screaming of beasts

and then nothing.

Just a wall.

And two people on a sofa, wrapped around each other.

Holding hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My darlings - thank you again for sticking with me.  
> And one more time i have to beg for your patience, because this chapter was the proverbial calm before the storm, and what comes next is _everything else_.  
> But - since this story is so complex, i will have to write the entire rest of it - every last bit of lead-up, climax, and denouement - before i post again. Which means it will take a bit of time.  
> HOWEVER.  
> The good news (if you will) is that when next i post, it will all be done, so that the last chapters will come at a pretty fast clip.
> 
> Also - just in case i haven't mentioned it lately - you are all WONDERFUL. All of you.  
> 💖💖💖


	11. Chapter 11

They sit. In silence. For endless minutes.

Until Killian asks very quietly, “Emma? Did you see----?”

And she nods.

She did see.   
And it was nothing like the rooftop dream.

“Killian? What---- ” She has to take a deep breath. “What is happening?”

“I don’t know.” He pulls her close, wraps himself around her, and she shouldn’t need protection like this, but  _ fuck _ , she’s terrified, and she’s slightly less terrified with him holding her.

It’s so cliché she almost laughs, except that nothing about this is funny at all.

_ There was a fucking jungle where her wall should have been. _

_ There was the sound of creatures and waves. _

_ It’s impossible. _

She can feel herself starting to shake and tries to stop it, clenches every muscle she has, but it’s no use, she just shakes harder and harder until tears of pure frustration start to roll down her cheeks, and then she hears Killian’s voice.

“Shhhhhhhh,” he says, his arms so tight around her she can feel every bit of him vibrate along with her trembling, “shhhhhhhhhhh, Emma. It’s all right.”

His nose is buried in her hair and he keeps dropping soft kisses to the back of her neck, and his arms are not letting go, not at all.

“It’s all right. Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise.” He pulls back, kisses her cheek. “We will figure this out, love. We  _ will _ .”

He sounds so certain.

Certain enough for both of them, and Emma slowly lets her muscles relax, slowly lets go, and the tremors stop. 

Killian kisses her again and then slides an arm underneath the hollows of her knees and simply gets up, gets up and carries her back to the bed. Lies down with her, still wrapped around her.

She shakes her head.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean to freak out.”

And he looks at her. So serious. 

“Emma,” he says. “You did not ‘freak out’. You were confronted with an  _ impossible  _ circumstance. As a matter of fact, you have constantly been confronted with impossible circumstances. For days now.  _ Days _ .” He cups her cheek. “You have dealt with the gruesome and the terrifying and the inexplicable and the dangerous without pause or respite, so I think you were--- how do you say it?” He drops into the worst American accent this side of Ewan McGregor and says, “ _ Way  _ overdue for a freak-out.”

It comes out part Valley Girl, part wannabe Southern, and Emma laughs out loud.

“OK,” she says when she can breathe again. “OK. I’m good now, and you are henceforth forbidden to imitate American ‘r’s for all eternity. Deal?”

“ _ Henceforth? _ ”

“Yes. Absolutely and totally henceforth.  _ Deal? _ ”

Killian smiles and looks at her, his eyes soft and fond.

“Deal,” He whispers, and then he leans forward and kisses her. “Are you truly all right?”

She nods.

“I am.” Then she checks her alarm clock. “We only have a few hours of sleep left. But----” her voice drops down a register--- “how much sleep do we really need?”

His eyes narrow and darken and his tongue does  _ that thing _ . 

“Not that much,” he says, and then gasps when Emma’s hand starts to run down his chest, his stomach, as she spreads her fingers past his navel. 

She loves the way his breath hitches, the way he looks at her, eyes blown black, shivers down his spine, every muscle and sinew tensed in anticipation. She lets her hand wander down further, slowly, as her other hand comes up and pulls down his head, as she nuzzles his neck, as his breath starts to stutter. 

She loves the way he lets her take the lead, lets her pull him taut slowly, like a bow string, her fingertips circling through coarse hair, her lips right above his pulse point, not quite close enough to touch. A moan escapes him and he shudders, and lifts his head to look at her, eyes burning, mouth open, straining, and she smiles at him.

He shifts his hips and makes a sound halfway between pleasure and pain, turns into her hand, and god, he is  _ hard _ . Everything south of Emma’s navel tightens all at once.

“Sleep is overrated,” she purrs, as his hand cups her breast, and it’s her turn to gasp.

“My sentiment---” she has to catch her breath as he starts to run his lips past her own pulse point--- “ _ exactly _ .”

With a growl he flips them both, stretches until he blankets her body, his weight reassuring and comforting and electrifying all at once, and he bites down on her neck as he pushes up his pelvis and she nearly screams with the want of it.

“Well then,” he says, and god, the look on his face as he devours the sight of her. “Let’s see if we can lift off this mattress again, shall we?”

And Emma has no objections at all.

None.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“What are you doing up?”

Mary Margaret flinches as he walks into the kitchen, and for a moment David is sorry he scared her. But he’s also worried, because he drifted off to sleep a few hours ago with her curled up beside him only to wake up cold and alone, and it’s unsettling. 

Her flinch doesn’t help.

“Oh, David, I’m so sorry,” she says, and smiles a wonderfully warm smile that goes a very long way towards putting him at ease. “I meant to come back to you a while ago, I’m really sorry.” 

She gets up and hugs him and kisses him gently and--- damn. It seems she can already read him. Read him well.

He puts his arms around her and she snuggles into his embrace like a contented cat and he really likes the way she feels against him. For a moment he is tempted to just pluck her off her feet and go back to the bedroom and not come out for at least a week, but lives are at stake and he is sworn to serve and protect after all.

Also, Mary Margaret has made coffee.

Which smells delicious.

“What were you working on?”

Mary Margaret sighs and squeezes him before she lets go and hands him a mug. Then she sits down again and angles her laptop so he can look, too.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about that symbol,” she says. “The triskelion.”

David thinks of Graham, walking around the woods compulsively, tracing a symbol with his tracks.

He puts his hand on Mary Margaret’s, feels the warmth of her skin.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t make it clear before. I really am sorry. I know he was your friend.”   
Mary Margaret’s eyes fill with tears. 

“He was,” she says. “He was my friend. And I just---- I keep thinking about him out there, alone and at the mercy of whatever it was that carved up his feet.”

She almost sobs, and then she shakes her head and blinks her tears away.

“Look,” she says, and now there is clear determination in her voice. “The best way to---”

Her voice cuts out and she clears her throat.

“Let’s not let it be in vain, OK?” It’s hoarse, but steady. “Let’s find out what the hell we’re dealing with and beat the fucker, OK?”

And David can’t help himself.

He pulls her close and gives her a smacking kiss. When he lets go again her cheeks are pink and he spends a long, lovely moment realizing that she is  _ blushing _ . 

_ She blushes, too.  _

He can feel his grin threaten to split his face and he vows to himself that when this is all over he will spend the rest of his life making her blush.

Then he leans forward and gives her another kiss and then points his chin at her laptop.

“So tell me,” he says. “What did you find out about triskelions?”

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  
  


“There are a  _ lot _ of interpretations here. Some of which directly contradict each other.”

August shifts against the headboard and Victor hands him a pillow before he lies back down with his head in August’s lap.

“Thanks.” August’s voice sounds distracted, his eyes glued to his phone and his thumb scrolling up fast. “There’s a whole feminine component, like it could symbolize female divinity, a ‘triple goddess’ if you will, and a very male interpretation to do with action and competition, especially when it’s actually viewed as three legs.”

Victor smiles.

August  _ is _ a detective at heart, in the truest sense of the word. He detects. He deciphers. He figures out the unknown, probes the depths of cause and effect, uncovers the strings which bind events together. Say  _ ‘I wonder what that symbol on the guy’s feet meant?’ _ to August and watch him snap right out of post-coital stupor and start doing research.

It’s so fucking endearing.

In the back of his mind, behind a tightly closed door of pure terror, Victor thinks about the absolute and supreme injustice that he might not have enough time to get to know this amazing, wonderful man thoroughly.

He quails at the thought.   
And then firmly banishes it behind that door again.

August’s free hand drops down to absent-mindedly tousle Victor’s hair, and he revels in the warmth and the sheer normalcy of it.

“Here’s a whole thing about it being active and passive---” August’s brow furrows--- “what is this, a  _ yin /yang _ ripoff?”

August sounds almost affronted and Victor smiles again. He is being unbearably cute.

“It could also represent mind, body, and soul, which makes much more sense, I think. Anyway - it seems to be a symbol of strength and energy. That’s the one recurring component.”

“Strength and energy,” Victor repeats. “Mind, body, soul. You know---- ”

August looks at him expectantly. And with no small amount of worry. It looks like the same fears that have been spiralling in Victor’s mind have been knocking around August’s as well. It shouldn’t fill him with hope, but it  _ does _ .

Victor shakes his head and forces himself to return to the matter at hand.

“That symbol was huge,” he says. “That man, the hunter -- he must have been walking for hours. There is no way that size did not matter here.”

The fact that August doesn’t make a joke, the fact that he doesn’t make one himself, is severely telling. The absence of the expected pun and innuendo nearly derails Victor completely, and it is only then that he realizes just how scared August is.

He sits up and takes August’s hand, holds it in both of his. 

“What if it’s not just the sign itself that’s important, or the size,” he says. “What if it’s the area? Or just--- am I being stupid? Thinking the place of strength and energy matters?”   
“Not at all.” August’s eyes are warm in his. “Actually I think you’re on to something.”

Victor can see it at that moment, can see the cop August used to be, wheels turning, synapses snapping-- but also the human being August is underneath the pronounced inclination for logic and analysis, the person who can’t help but feel  _ everything _ , so much so that he sometimes has to dive down a bottle just for a bit of necessary numbness, and something warm and wonderful and excruciatingly painful rises in his chest.

He squeezes August’s fingers to the point of pain and says, “I think it’s time.”

“Time for what?” August’s face is a study in apprehension.

Victor smiles. “Time for you to get back in the game. Time for you to be a cop again.”

August takes a deep breath to reply, but Victor cuts him off.

“Stop it,” he says softly. “Stop playing. We need you to be a detective again, to not just ‘play one on TV’.” He exhales slowly.

“ _ I _ need you to be a detective again. We cannot do this without you, and if it’s all the same to you, I’d---” His voice cuts out and he has to swallow.

Tears shine in August’s eyes, but he remains still.

“If it’s all the same to you,” Victor’s voice drops to a whisper. “I’d rather be around to get to know you well enough to annoy the fuck out of you.”

August chuckles and wipes his eyes and then he leans forward to press his lips against Victor’s. Hard.

“I’d like that, too,” he says. 

They stay like that, just looking at each other. Just breathing together.

Then August gets up off the bed and claps his hands together.

“Let’s do it,” he says, and his voice is entirely different from anything Victor has heard before. Here he is,  _ the cop _ , front and center. “I’m going to jump in the shower while you please organize us all the hot black coffee you can get your hands on. A whole thermos if Granny has those. And then we’re going to the station and we’re going to work this fucker until he bleeds.”

There is no way,  _ no way _ Victor can not kiss him senseless after that.

August doesn’t protest at all.

  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  
  


“I can’t believe you’re open already.” Ashley smiles at Granny, who nods at her and picks up a cup.

“Doc,” she nods, wiping the counter before setting it down. “Coffee will be a few minutes though. I just had one of my guests take the whole first pot. Want to grab yourself a booth?”

Ashley nods and turns and at that moment the bell above the door chimes and they both watch a tall blonde woman enter and smile a tired, somewhat apprehensive smile in their direction.

“Oh,” she says, “I’m so glad to see something is open. You are open, right?”

Ashley can feel Granny gearing up for one of her trademark bits of biting sarcasm and heads her off at the pass.

“I believe she is,” she says, smiling at the woman. “At least I was promised coffee.”

“Good. That’s good.” The blonde woman shudders once and then her shoulders relax as she takes in the warmth of the diner. “I would love a cup of coffee as well.”

“It’s almost done,” Granny says, not unkindly, and adds, “why don’t you both get yourself situated? The griddle’s still heating up, but I should be able to get you breakfast in a few.”

Ashley makes her way to a booth as the delicious smell of fresh coffee starts to permeate the air, but the blonde woman doesn’t move.

Instead she asks, “Are you--- this is Granny’s, right?”

“That’s what it says on the sign.”

“Oh,” says the blonde, derailed for a short moment, “I didn’t see a--- sorry.” She takes off her coat. “But--- can you tell me which room Killian Jones is in?”

Ashley watches Granny’s eyes grow large, and feels her own do the same.

And then Granny leans forward. “I absolutely cannot tell you that,” she says, her voice sharp, almost hostile. “Not without a warrant. Privacy for one, state law for another. But---” her eyes narrow and now her tone is definitely hostile--- “if you’re the detective’s wife and it turns out he’s been leading our sheriff on, we’re all going to have  _ words _ .”

The way Granny spits ‘words’ is pure venom.

“Oh. No!” The woman laughs and holds up her hands. “I’m his sister-in-law.”

“Ah.” Granny’s face relaxes a fraction, and at that moment the coffee urn beeps. “OK then. I still can’t give you his room number. Do you still want the coffee?”

The woman nods. 

“Oh  _ god  _ yes,” she says with gusto, and all three of them laugh.

And then Ashley waves her over.

“I think you’d better sit with me,” she says. “I’m betting you’re here because of everything that’s been happening.”

The woman nods.

“I am,” she says, sliding into the booth. “I’m Elsa. Killian called me last night and told me to come up here.” She throws a look in Granny’s direction. “He said to come to this diner, but I’m a bit early.”

“Nice to meet you.” Ashley shakes her hand. “I’m Dr. Ashley Boyd. I’m the Medical Examiner. And I’m here to see the sheriff. Also a bit early.”

Granny walks up to their table with the coffee pot and Ashley gives her a hard look.

“You can’t tell me the detective is here, in his room,” she says. “I’ll bet vital parts of my anatomy that boy is staying with Emma.” 

She watches Granny’s face twitch. Bullseye. 

“I thought so.” She turns back to the woman. “In that case, Elsa, we might as well have breakfast while we wait.”

Elsa tries very hard not to grin at the lethal amount of insinuation Ashley has packed into the word ‘wait’ and fails completely. Ashley likes her already.

“Granny makes a mean grilled cheese,” she says. “If it were lunch I’d also recommend the onion rings, but since it’s barely day, I say go with the waffles.”

  
  
  


-/-

  
  


It is still pitch dark outside when the alarm goes off, and a hard wind beats raindrops against the windows like shotgun pellets. Emma’s hand slams on the snooze button and then she curls herself back into Killian, his arm heavy around her middle, small puffs of breath tickling the back of her neck. They don’t move until the alarm goes off again, and Emma groans as she slams the snooze button again.

This time his hand starts stroking her hip, and he kisses her neck, nuzzles her cheek.

“We have to get up,” he whispers. “There are riddles to solve and lives to save.”

Emma groans again. 

“I know,” she says. “But--- why does it have to be us? Why can’t someone else do the work and we just stay here and----”

He leans down to kiss her and Emma sighs.

“----do that, exactly.” She smiles as he pulls back. She smiles because it’s lovely to wake up next to him. She is warm and comfortable and she revels in just how weird it is  _ not _ . It feels like this is where he belongs, where she belongs, like they should have been waking up next to each other forever.

She only hopes it’s the same for him.

What if it isn’t the same for him?

What if it is all in her head, all of this - the comfort and the warmth and the----

“Emma,” he says softly and brushes his lips across hers. “Where did you go just now?”

She chuckles.

He’s reading her like a goddamn book. Again.

“Stay with me,” he says, and his fingers stroke down her side, come to rest on her hip and squeeze her gently.

“I’m here,” she says. “Sorry. Took a quick detour down Insecure Avenue, but I’m back now.”

“Good.” He smiles. “Please don’t--- please don’t doubt this.” He kisses her again. “I’m here, too.”

“Thank you for reminding me,” she whispers. And then she kisses him back.

  
  


.

  
  


An hour later they’re both showered and dressed and Killian has a hard time keeping his hands to himself. It has gotten to the point where he feels cold unless he’s touching her, letting their connection flow warm through his own veins, and it seems Emma feels the same way, because she constantly finds small ways to keep in physical contact with him.

When she touches his arm for the tenth time, only to snatch her hand back, he catches her wrist and holds on. Slowly her eyes wander from his hand on hers to his face and he nods.

He doesn’t need to say it.

They know.

She smiles back at him and opens her palm and that’s how they leave her house.

Connected.

  
  


When they get to the diner the clock reads 7:12 AM, Granny’s in the middle of making waffles, and Elsa and Dr Boyd are sitting in a booth, together. Ashley gets up, sits back down next to Elsa, and Killian and Emma slide into the now vacant booth. Killian leans his leg against Emma’s as soon as he sits down. She smiles softly when he does.   
Like it’s their little secret.

But when he turns to look at Elsa, her eyes tell him in no uncertain terms that she knows  _ exactly  _ what they’re doing.

Killian grins unrepentantly.

Emma knocks her knee into his and then looks at the ME. “What are you doing here this morning, Doc?”

“It’s a very strange case, this one,” Ashley says. “And I found something--- odd. So odd I decided to come down here and show you.”

“I appreciate it,” Emma says solemnly, and Killian can see the bond now between the two, see the mutual respect and genuine understanding they have. He can picture them on a precinct bench, talking. They share a wavelength.

Killian looks at Elsa, calmly drinking her coffee. “Did you just happen to meet then?”

Elsa nods. “We were both early. And Granny makes excellent coffee.” She smiles. “Of course Ashley couldn’t tell me anything confidential---” she nods at Emma-- “but I tried to give her some background.”

“Oh, fuck it,” Emma says, and three pairs of eyes snap to her all at once. She rolls her eyes and turns to Elsa. “I’ll just deputize you, too. You already have an NDA with the Boston PD, I assume? Seeing as you consult with them?”

Elsa nods.

“That’s good enough for me,” Emma says, and Killian reaches for her hand under the table and squeezes it, hard, because she’s fucking adorable when she’s all tough and businesslike and if he’s not careful he’ll just haul her off to the nearest bedroom. 

Which is  _ his  _ bedroom.

Here.

Upstairs.

To which he has a key.

For a very long moment he has to bite his tongue and let the pain flood his mouth to stop his wayward thoughts.

He comes back to Emma saying, “OK, Ashley. We’re all read in. Spill.”

Ashley looks around with narrowed eyes for a moment and then nods and waits for Granny to set down his and Emma’s coffee before she goes back to the griddle.

“OK,” Ashley says. “It’s the quills. I performed every test in the book. Looked up every fauna database. Consulted two different ornithologists -- one from Cornell and one from the Bronx zoo. The quills cannot be attributed to any known animal, none, neither current nor extinct.” 

She opens her case, takes out a manila envelope and pulls a set of papers from it. 

“So I threw them in the mass spectrometer to see what they’re made of. Turns out they are comprised of basic, acidic and neutral keratins, carbon, and various and sundry completely innocuous and thoroughly expected elements. As well as two substances the mass spec could not identify.” She points at two highlighted lines. “And the reason it could not identify them, is that neither one of them can be found on the periodic table.” She exhales. “Because they do not exist.”

  
  


.

  
  


It should have shocked her more. 

Ashley’s revelation should have landed like a percussion grenade, but Emma feels like all she can do is nod in perfect acceptance of the impossible. Again.

She does nod, and so do Killian and Elsa, and Ashley’s eyes narrow down to slits.

“I see,” she says slowly. “There’s a whole chunk of information I am missing, it seems.”

Emma nods again. “There is. And it’s all crazy.”

“Crazier than nonexistent  _ elements _ ? Because trust me, we’ve pretty much mapped them all.”

Emma smiles. “Oh, Dr Boyd, you don’t know the half of it.”

“Apparently not.” She leans forward. “Talk to me.”

“You’ll think we’re nuts.” Emma feels Killian’s hand under the table, rubbing his thumb in circles across her thigh. It’s comforting.

Ashley sighs. “You’re pretty much running that risk whether you tell me or not.”

“No, you don’t understand.” There’s a queer, queasy feeling in the pit of Emma’s stomach. Talking to Elsa and Killian, and even David is one thing. Technically David and Killian are law enforcement, but--- they’re on her side. They’re part of the madness that is this case. 

Ashley--- is  _ official. _

She’s the ME for the entire southern district, she is a medical doctor and a forensic pathologist, she has a staff of over a dozen people and routinely testifies in court. To tell her the truth could be dangerous.

Ashley  _ can  _ have them committed to psych leave.

All of them.

She can cost them their jobs, every last one.

Then again, she is the person who single-handedly changed the trajectory of Emma’s life for the better. Emma owes her the truth.

She takes a deep breath and Killian leans over to kiss her cheek, and then whispers into her ear, “Let me.”

_ Of course  _ he knows exactly what’s going on in her head. 

_ Of course  _ he would offer to take the hit.

“No,” she sighs, and threads her fingers through his, feels their warmth pulsing through her again, soft and safe and wonderful. 

“No,” she repeats, and brushes her lips across his. “It’s my story. I’ll tell her.”

As Emma leans back she sees Elsa grinning across the table and throws her a quick eye roll, before she turns to face Ashley.

“The reason we’re not that surprised,” she says, proud of how steady her voice is, “is that there are a truckload of impossible aspects to this case. First and foremost that it seems to involve magic.”

Ashley’s mouth drops open.

“Real magic,” Emma goes on. “Real, actual magic. Mine, to be precise.”

She rolls her eyes again.

“Who knew.”

  
  
  


Ashley is silent for a full minute. It doesn’t look like she’s breathing.

Nobody moves the entire time.

Then she shakes her head and clears her throat.

“I should report you.” Her voice is not serious. “God, I should report the lot of you, you realize that, right?” She looks at each one of them in turn and smiles. “For mandatory psych evals at the very least. Which would be ironic, in Elsa’s case.”

Elsa laughs out loud. “Actually, it would be par for the course for me. Everyone wants to send the shrink up the river sooner or later.”

“I can imagine,” Ashley says, and then turns back to Emma and Killian. “If you’d told me this a few days ago, I  _ would  _ have reported you.”

“But now…?” Emma can’t keep the undertone of fear from her voice. No matter how solid Killian’s hand is in hers.

“Well,” Ashley leans back. “In the last few days I’ve been confronted with not one, but two meticulously staged corpses, one of them sixty feet above the ground. Both of them dead from causes unknown, with ancient runes carved into their backs. One victim had a triskelion cut into his feet, and -- according to his own cell phone data -- walked out that very symbol across half a square mile. Never mind the fact that each of these victims was holding a quill made from materials which  _ do not exist. _ ”

She rolls her eyes and laughs, helpless.

“Let’s just say that the mention of magic is not the strangest thing that’s happened to me in the last 72 hours, and really, at the rate this case is going, it was the next logical step.”

She shakes her head again.

“Look, I can buy a serial killer who is proficient in ancient languages and ritual sacrifice and whatnot, even though I have a very hard time believing in one who can position corpses on bridges and in trees without leaving  _ any  _ trace of having done so, but.”

She takes a deep breath.

“Whoever it is  _ cannot _ just go and synthesize new elements from household chemicals, no matter how good they were in high school chemistry. It’s just not possible.”

She nods at Emma and Killian.

“Therefore I’m open to a whole host of explanations I would never have considered otherwise. And honestly,” she looks at Elsa, “I’d have to have myself committed right alongside you guys. Because I’m no longer sure science is the answer here, and just for that I should be sacked, actually.”

Emma breathes a huge sigh of relief.

Killian pulls her flush against his body. She can feel his heart beating, fast and irregular. He’d been just as scared as she was a moment ago.

“Good,” Emma says. “That’s very good news. Because none of us can afford to get locked into a holding cell right now. The clock is ticking.”

Ashley’s brow furrows. “What clock?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG - all you lovely people - THANK YOU FOR STICKING WITH ME.  
> This is an epically long road, i know.  
> i PROMISE it's leading places.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darlings -  
> you have been wonderful and patient, and here is where the puzzle finally comes together.  
> Ish.
> 
> Oh - i hope it was worth the wait!

When David and Snow get to the station at 8:37 AM, the doctor and the ex-cop from Boston are already there. A large thermos sits on David’s desk, they’re each holding mugs, and the air smells like French roast. They’ve also commandeered one of the white boards and are drawing up a diagram, completely oblivious to their surroundings. 

Until Mary Margaret says, “Hi guys! What are you working on?”

They both flinch and turn and then grin, and for the second time in as many days, David is confronted with a changed person. This time it is August.

The former police officer has never looked like anything other than roadkill - whether he slept at Granny’s or in David’s drunk tank. But not today.

His posture is not just straight, it is--- commanding. His eyes are sharp, his face clean-shaven, his movements purposeful, and his voice full of determination. He is stone cold sober and looks at ease in these surroundings, comfortable in his skin among the piles of evidence.

In front of David is a metropolitan detective, first grade. Completely in his element. Working a case.

Mary Margaret whistles. “Nice to meet you, Detective Booth,” she says. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

August nods at her and David. 

“It was time,” he says, and smiles at Dr Whale. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

Victor pats his arm and says, “Don’t be sorry. You’re here now, firing on all cylinders.” Then he walks over to the thermos and holds it out to David and Mary Margaret. “You want some real coffee before we show you what we got so far?”

And David says, “Oh god, _yes_ ,” with the fervor only years of bad station sludge could have mustered, and Victor laughs.

And Mary Margaret gives David a kiss.

  
  


“We’ve made two chains of causal links,” August says when they’re all settled. “Because the most important thing to work on is the line leading to the targets.”

“Why is that the most important thing?” Mary Margaret asks.

“It’s the most tangible lead we have,” David answers. “Everything else is vague conjecture and--- things that sound, well, supernatural.”

August nods. “True. But there’s another reason. Look. Here, again, is Elsa.”

He points to the topmost line, which reads:  
  
**ELSA: Belle (connection?) → Will (no connection) → Eric (no connection) → Liam (ULTIMATE CONNECTION)**

“And here is Emma.”

**EMMA: Leroy (connection /youth?) → Graham (no connection) → Victor (no connection) → _______ (ULTIMATE CONNECTION)**

He leans forward and his jaw muscles jump. “Now, apart from the fact that this fucker is not - and I repeat - is _NOT_ getting the Doc here,” August takes a deep breath, “it is glaringly obvious that the last link in that chain is missing.”

He taps his marker against the board, against the empty space before the words **ULTIMATE CONNECTION**.

“And we can spin this any way we want to, but we _all_ know whose name goes there.” 

“Mine,” comes a voice from the main entrance, and David sees four people at the other end of the room. Emma, the ME, the psychiatrist from Boston---- and Killian. 

Killian who takes a step forward, his eyes locked on the whiteboard, and repeats slowly, in a very soft voice, “I’m the last link.”

  
  
  
  


.

  
  
  


They collide in Emma’s head, the magic and the vision, and all she can see is Killian on the rooftop, falling.

_Falling._

The wind howls.

From very far away she thinks she can make out his voice, but all she can hear is howling. And the word _no!_ , spiralling around her.

The howling is not wind. It’s a voice. It’s always been a voice, but this time--- it’s _her_ voice. Her voice repeating _no!_ in an endless loop.

With something that feels like an electric shock, Emma snaps back to the present.

She’s on the floor of the police station, sitting on her heels, Killian kneeling before her, holding her hands. Around them she can make out everyone else, staring at them in perfect silence. The silence seems absolute somehow, mostly because the echo of her voice is still dissipating.

“Emma?” Killian’s voice is careful and quiet. “Emma can you hear me?”

She nods.

She’s _mortified_.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I don’t know what happened.”

“Don’t you dare.” He’s resolute now. “Do not be sorry. Tell me what you saw.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Did you see the rooftop?”

She nods again. Can’t look up. Not at all those faces.

Not at his face, _his face_ , with his worried eyes and his kind smile.

She is not losing him. She is _not_.

Not today.

Not ever.

_Not ever._

“Emma,” he says. “Emma, please.” And he leans forward, brushes his lips across her forehead, and warmth _explodes_ inside her.

It comes on in a rush, all at once, and fills her with strength, with vigor, with hope. Killian’s arms wrap around her and he pulls her up, steadies her, and kisses her.

She kisses him back with everything she has, everything, in front of everyone in the room, because who cares. 

It’s them against the powers of fucking evil. Everything else is secondary.

And she is not losing him.

Killian lifts her chin, looks at her closely. “All right?”

And she nods for the third time.

She can do this.

They can do this.

Together.

  
  


And then Elsa walks over to the whiteboard, before they can stop her, before they can explain what they figured out the night before about targets and victims, walks to the first chain of causal links which begins with her name, and runs her finger down the line. Her hand stops underneath Liam’s name and then drops to her side as she turns around.

“This is very interesting,” she says in a low voice. “It looks like your work, August. I would recognize your brand of deductive pragmatism anywhere.”

August shuffles his feet and shakes his head. 

“Sorry to spring this on you,” he says. “We’re rolling up the cases from a completely different angle.” 

“So I see.” She points at the name _Belle_. “Well, I can clear that part up for you.”

Emma takes Killian’s hand and holds on to it, tightly.

He holds hers back. Just as tightly.

“Belle and I grew up together,” Elsa says. “We were best friends, actually, until her father moved them away when we were teenagers.”

She looks up, smiles a wan smile at August.

“You know how it is. We lost touch completely. I never heard from her again until her name appeared in the papers. Brutally murdered.”

“I’m so sorry.” Killian shakes his head. “You should have told me. I never knew that you were dealing with that on top of everything else.”

“Oh, stop it, LB,” she says. “I hadn’t even met you yet.”

And August walks over to the whiteboard and erases the question mark next to the first ‘connection’. And adds the word, ‘youth’.

  
  


.

  
  
  


“OK. Then let’s see where that puts us, shall we?” Emma has been shaking very slightly ever since he pulled her up off the floor, but her voice is steady. She squeezes his fingers for a brief moment and then nods and walks up to the board.

And writes his name into the last blank.

Killian swallows hard. It is one thing to know his name is the missing link. It is quite another to see it written down.

Emma stands there for a moment, just looking at the board, just breathing slowly, and then she squares her shoulders and starts to write more names, draw more lines.

August sidles up to Killian and nudges his shoulder with his own. 

“She would make a hell of a detective,” he says, his voice calm and firm and with that slight hint of amused irreverence that comes from being the whole package -- superior deductive reasoning and observational skill and Ivy League education rolled into the the most well-rounded detective of them all -- and Killian is so, so glad to hear it.

To see _August_ again.

“All right,” Emma says, and Killian looks back at the board. “Let’s go through this one by one and check what’s missing, OK?”

Everyone nods.

Emma has their complete attention, every single last pair of eyes resting on her, and it fills Killian with warmth even though they’re not physically touching. She is magnificent, all focus and concentration, and he is so very proud of her.

She _would_ make a fantastic detective. He vaguely recalls taking the piss regarding that very subject the first time they met, and shudders. There’s so much he has to apologize for, if they live through this.

 _When_ they’ve lived through this.

They will live through this.

Both of them.

He shakes his head, because the last thing they need is for his mind to wander, and studies the board.

“So, Elsa and Belle knew each other as children, as teenagers,” Emma says. “Leroy and I knew each other back when I was a teenager as well.” She pauses, shudders, and takes a deep breath, but then goes on without flinching. “Now, Belle went out with Will. He found her, and most likely touched her. Possibly looking for a pulse. Or maybe he just wanted to see what she was holding.” Her voice turns pensive. “It must have been awful. To be the one to find her.”

August nods. “It was. It nearly broke him.” 

“I’m so sorry,” Emma says, and bites her lip. “I know this is hard, but---”

“It’s all right,” Elsa says. “Go on. This is important.” She smiles. “It’s _necessary_. So let’s get on with it, shall we?”

They all nod in unison.

“OK.” Emma points back at the board. “So. Elsa connects to Belle. Belle connects to Will. Does Will connect to Eric only by way of the job?”

“No,” Ashley says, and every single pair of eyes snaps to her. “They were friends in real life. Really good friends. They went through the academy together.”

“How did you know?” August looks puzzled.

“I dated Eric,” Ashley says quietly. “For a few months. Before he---” Her voice cuts out and she swallows hard. “At the time.”

“Oh,” Mary Margaret says. “It was you. I thought it was the ME.” Her eyes widen. “But--- wait. Doesn’t that mean you were familiar with the case already? You must have recognized the MO.”

Ashley shakes her head.

“I wasn’t the ME at the time,” she says. “I wasn’t even a doctor yet. I was a med student earning a few bucks doing clerical work in the South City Morgue during the graveyard shift. I transcribed recordings, mostly.” She shrugs. “They usually get med students to do that kind of work, because the findings are full of technical terms, and also, because med students are cheap.” She turns to look at Emma. “I never saw any of the victims, and I certainly wasn’t part of any post mortems. As for remembering case details, trust me when I tell you, after the hundredth write-up, you no longer pay attention to any particulars.” 

She takes a deep breath, and it takes her a moment to go on. 

“Eric asked me for Will Scarlet’s records as they came in,” she finally says. “I simply photocopied them for him before I went home each night. It wasn’t illegal. He was the officer assigned to the case. I just gave him records he would have gotten anyway.”

“Nobody is accusing you of any wrongdoing,” August says softly. “Least of all me. You are the picture of propriety and professionalism, from what I can tell.”

Killian and David and Emma nod in unison. With vehemence.

“I just--- I blocked the whole thing from my mind, after Eric----” Ashley’s voice breaks. She takes a deep breath and Elsa pats her arm. Ashley nods at her.

“Thanks,” she says. “It’s OK. We hadn’t been going out that long. I wasn’t even invited to the funeral. His family didn’t know about me.” She wipes her eyes. “I just--- I really liked him a lot.” 

Then she looks at Emma. “But working at the morgue did kindle my interest in forensics. Which is how I came to be at that police station the day we met.”

“Interesting,” Emma says. “You’re not directly linked to any part of the first causal chain, but---”

“You’re the link to Emma,” Killian says, and fear pools in the pit of his stomach. “You’re the link to the second set of events.”

“I’m really sorry,” Ashley whispers, and Elsa rounds on her. 

“Don’t you dare apologize,” she says. “This is not on you. None of this is your fault.”

Then Elsa looks at each of them in turn. There is fire in her eyes.

“There’s been enough tragedy,” she says, all conviction and righteous anger. “And we caused _none_ of it. You hear me? _None of it._ So let’s dispense with the guilt, _goddammit,_ and _get this fucker.”_

There is absolute silence for almost ten seconds.

And then August says, “SIR, YES SIR!”, and every single one of them bursts out laughing.  
  


.

  
  


“OK,” Emma says when they’re done. “That brings us to the current case.”

She skips right past recapping Liam, and Killian is unbearably grateful for it. Especially since Emma smiles at him briefly before she goes on, a small smile of encouragement, and the golden warmth once again spreads through him.

It seems they don’t even need to touch anymore.

He smiles back at her and the warmth intensifies.

“So we have Leroy’s connection to me,” Emma’s voice is thoughtful. “And Graham was a hunter. It was likely he’d be the one to find him, since he spent so much time in the forest.”

“Actually,” Mary Margaret steps forward. “I can shed some light on that. I think they knew each other.” Every pair of eyes in the room turns to look at her, and she steps forward, up to the white board, every inch the teacher she is.

Her arms even move, to emphasize her points. 

“You see, Graham volunteered for the halfway house. Did day trips for the occupants - get recovering addicts back to nature, away from temptation and into the fresh air, you know the drill. He was very convinced of the---” her voice wavers, but she catches herself--- “of the healing powers of the woods.”

She turns to the board, and with her sleeve erases the word ‘no’ in front of the word ‘connection’, everywhere on the board except for in front of Victor’s name. Then she plucks the marker from Emma’s hand, writes _Dr Boyd_ in the middle, and draws a line from Eric to Ashley and from Ashley to Emma.

Killian can see David grin, and has a hard time biting down on his own. Mary Margaret really is one _hundred_ percent a teacher.

When she turns her eyes are unfocused, obviously caught up in a memory. 

“I think Leroy went on several of Graham’s outings. I never went with him on those tours, none of us did, but he did talk about maybe bringing some of the interested residents on our hunting trips, integrate them into the community, you know. Not that we were very keen on giving newly sober people rifles.” 

She shakes her head. “We were incredibly judgmental. Just awful. I wish I could tell him that.” She shakes her head. “I wish he was here, so I could tell him that he was the best of us, and we didn’t deserve him at all.”

Mary Margaret gives David a brief, wan smile, and says, “I’m sorry I didn’t mention this earlier, but--- honestly, I didn’t think of it. It completely slipped my---”

“It’s OK,” David says, and nods his head in encouragement. “These past few days have been a lot to deal with.” 

“Yeah,” she says quietly. And then louder, “but anyway, here’s your connection.”

“Which brings us to you,” Emma once again steps forward and points at Victor. “You seem to be the only disconnected person of the whole bunch.”

And Victor says, “Well…..” 

At which point August turns and looks at the doctor with eyes as big as saucers.

“NO,” he says. “Do not tell me you---”

Victor looks like he’s in pain. “I don’t know,” he whispers. “During my---” 

His eyes cut to Killian and then back again, quickly, and Killian feels it like a punch in the gut.   
  


Oh god.

OH GOD.

“There were a lot of back rooms,” Victor goes on, squirming. “I don’t remember all of it, to be honest. I was kind of drinking a lot for a while.”

_OH GOD._

But before Killian can even start to feel responsible and ashamed, August looks at Victor and laughs. 

“It’s OK,” he says. “I know the feeling.” He gives the doctor a smacking kiss. “God, do I ever know that feeling. But - do we know if Graham was---”

“ _Definitely._ ” Both Ashley and Mary Margaret say it simultaneously, and then break into identical grins.

“Wait,” says Mary Margaret. “How do you know the Huntsman?”

“I took his orienteering course, remember?” Ashley smiles. “Five days in the wilderness, just the two of us. And not even a glance when I was naked in the river.”

Mary Margaret laughs out loud. “Tell me about it. Five years as the only woman on hunting trips. Every guy undressed me with his eyes within minutes of heading out. Except Graham.”

David huffs and Killian shoots him a sympathetic smile. The guy really cannot catch a break. The fire-engine-red blush from the absolutely _wicked_ grin Mary Margaret is currently aiming in his direction notwithstanding.

“And also,” Mary Margaret goes on, still grinning, “Graham actually loved going to clubs. He said there was something primal about dancing, that it was just another extension of nature. And that it was a great way to release tension.”

Emma clears her throat and looks at Victor. “That means, uh, there might be--”

“---a chance this one banged his brains out in a back room?” August cuts in, ruffling Victor’s hair. “You bet your jollies.” Then he leans over and slaps the doctor’s ass, hard. “But from now on, we’re going to behave ourselves, aren’t we?”

Victor licks his lips. “Up to a point.”

“That’s my boy,” August says, and gives him another kiss, this one deep and long and absolutely carnal. When he pulls back he grins unrepentantly, and it turns out that Victor is also excellent at blushing.

Excellent.

“Which brings us to the triskelion,” August says without missing another beat, and walks over to the area map sporting the symbol. “I’ve been trying to research its meaning---” He cuts himself off and looks over at Killian in apology. “Sorry, professor, treading on your territory, I know. But from what I could find, the definitions and associations seem widely divergent.”

Killian nods.

“Other than the fact that it is the symbol for the Isle of Man,” August goes on and then smiles at Killian. “That was a stroke of brilliance, by the way, the way you tied that into the runes and the language even before we found the symbol.”

“Not at all.” Killian shakes his head. The words taste bitter on his tongue. “I should have made the connection years ago.” His chest constricts painfully before the vision of his complete and utter failure. “Back when I could have saved some lives.”

“Don’t,” Emma says, and it sounds strangled. “Just don’t.”

She says nothing else, but her eyes are burning in his, and the iron band around his chest loosens a fraction.

“She’s right,” Elsa says quietly. “Just don’t. We said we were done with the fucking guilt.”

“I had no idea you had so much sailor in you.” He has to smile. “You keep dropping f-bombs like that, what choice do I have?”

“None whatsoever,” Elsa says, and grins. “And you don’t know the half of it.”

“Anyway,” August says, rolling his eyes, “back to the triskelion. For which I found a host of definitions. I swear, half of them sounded like people were just slamming trinities together. The original Greek meaning seems to be lost, but there is mention of a triple goddess, and it is a ubiquitous symbol in Celtic culture, it seems, although even here, no one agrees on its actual definition.”

He smiles at Killian again, a little abashed. Killian nods at August in encouragement.

“So, none of this is spectacularly helpful, I admit,” August goes on. “But the one recurring theme was that of power, of energy.” He turns to Emma. “Now, are you quite sure you don’t know if your ancestors were from the Isle of Man?”

Killian watches Emma wilt a bit, and almost walks over to her, but he can tell from her body language that she’s pulled tighter than a bowstring and that at this moment, touch is not what she wants. So he bites down on his urge to comfort her and remains where he is.

Even though he hates it.

“No,” Emma answers. “I really don’t know. I don’t know anything about my past or any relatives. I was found by the side of a road.”

And August goes very, very still.

So still that everyone notices.

“By the side of a road?” He whispers. “What road?”

“I don’t know,” Emma says, puzzled. “A country road, somewhere outside of Portland.”

“A country road outside of Portland.” August’s voice is barely audible by now. “Were you by any chance found by a seven-year-old boy?”

Emma’s eyes widen and Killian gasps. It cannot be.

“Yes,” she breathes. “I was.”

And there it is.

The final piece of their puzzle. Killian is sure of it.

August walks over to Emma, very gently takes the marker from her, and puts his own name on the board. From his name he draws two lines. One to Liam’s name, under which he writes, PARTNER. And one to Emma’s name, underneath which he writes, FOUND.

Nobody speaks for an endless moment.

“I guess that’s everything,” Emma says at last, and her voice feels rusty. She looks up, looks at the letters  _ Killian Jones _ under the words **ULTIMATE CONNECTION** , and starts to shake.

And then she feels Killian’s hand against her back, warm and solid, and she steadies immediately, only a small tremor running down her spine. She looks over to the other whiteboards.

They can’t stop now.

She can’t stop now.

There is no time for weakness, or doubt, or that nervous breakdown she’s been skirting for hours.

“Killian,” she says slowly. “I think it’s time you figured out what those cards say. Now that you have a line on the languages.”

He rubs his thumb in slow, lazy circles, and bends close to her ear. “Are you all right, love? We can take a quick break.”

His scruff tickles her cheek, and she’s tempted. So tempted. To take him back to her house and kiss him senseless. Or have her meltdown, whichever comes first.

“I’m fine,” she whispers, and kisses his jaw. “Let’s keep going.”

He looks at her for a long moment, and then nods. “OK. Let’s do it.”

He kisses her cheek and then walks over to the board with the notecards, takes them down, and spreads them out on Emma’s desk. She watches him arrange them, calmly, methodically, so completely focused on the Ogham script that he nearly misses her desk chair as he sits.

He spreads them out in two lines, the three original cards on top, the color of the runes nearly grey with age now. And then the three cards of her own case below, their rusted brown quill strokes still recalling the blood used to write them.

She remembers finding them at the cabin, back when Leroy was just missing, just an alcoholic on a likely bender, back when she’d never heard of Killian or serial murders or of half the things she’s in the thick of now. Remembers how red and shiny the symbols were, not even quite dry yet, and how she’d felt true fear for the first time in her life.

She shudders.

Killian starts to mutter to himself, making notes on her legal pad in his elegant, precise handwriting, and pushes the cards around, and they all watch him with bated breath. It takes a while, and he’s completely caught in his head, has obviously forgotten where he is as he starts to talk to himself in earnest.

“If this is--- then that makes this _ the power _ \--- Future inflexion--- an order??”

He picks up the first card, puts it at the end of the line. 

“ _ Water _ ? Is it water? Eternal--- this might be eternity, but  _ eternity water? _ _ The water eternal? _ That’s the feminine singular, so---. It could be source, of course, wellspring maybe, but then this--- The possessive of three? Three of what though?----”

  
  


When he looks up and realizes they’re all staring at him, he flushes crimson, and even in the throes of dread and worry Emma can’t believe just how freaking  _ adorable  _ it is as she watches his hand come up to scratch behind his ear right on cue. Oh, to play poker with that man.

Strip poker.

He would be  _ so  _ naked before Emma even took off her jacket.

She smiles at him, and he smiles back, a little self-consciously, and she walks over and puts her hand on his shoulder.

“Tell us what you have,” she says. “I know you have something.”

“Well….” His hand scratches his ear again. “I don’t profess to be proficient enough in Old Norse to really understand what’s written here. Especially since it’s not actually Old Norse. It’s just attempting to be Old Norse.” He looks up in apology. “I’m sorry, I know I’m being confusing, but I can’t quite explain it. It’s as if someone had been told  _ about  _ Old Norse, and then attempted to replicate it. Like-- if I described Van Gogh’s  _ Starry Night _ to you and then asked you to paint it. You would paint a night with stars, but it would still be very different, you know?”

“That makes perfect sense,” Emma says. “Go on.”

“Now - the Manx is different,” he says, pointing to the cards. “First of all, I’m much more familiar with Manx.” He smiles at her again, ducking his head a bit. As if the fact that he is a complete and utter nerd at heart is news to her. She rolls her eyes, and he grins again. “But also---” he points again, to a different card this time-- “this is much closer to the Manx language as we know it, than the previous ones were to Old Norse.”

“Which is probably the main reason you couldn’t figure it out before, so stop beating yourself up over it,” Elsa says from across the room, and every single person nods.

Killian flushes again, and Emma takes his hand. The warmth between them surges like a living thing.

“OK,” he whispers. “In that case, let’s see what your notecards said. First, let’s look at the phonetic sounds.”

And then he starts to read out loud.

The sounds are strange, the words oddly melodic and yet curiously harsh. They are mesmerizing in their eccentricity and hypnotic in their utter unfamiliarity, and she notices it too late.

Killian reads, on and on, and they don’t see it, none of them, 

_ none of them, _

and neither does Emma

because she’s listening to his voice, mellow, beautiful, sure in its recitation of the obscure and ancient, and she doesn’t notice,  _ doesn’t see--- _

doesn’t see the sky darken until the light at the station flicks out, 

doesn’t hear the lightning crack until it lights up the room like a flare, 

doesn’t feel the thunder roar until it shakes the walls---

shakes her out of her trance 

and she screams, screams for Killian to stop,  _ STOP NOW! _ \---

but it is

too late

and the lightning  _ crashes _

and the thunder  _ roars _

and then they are both

enveloped 

in a column of 

smoke

and the next thing she feels are her feet 

landing hard

on the concrete

of a rooftop

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i apologize in advance for this little bit of a cliffhanger i, uh, ended on.  
> But i promise you, as soon as nanowrimo ends, i will pick up this story again and post as soon as possible, OK?  
> THANK YOU ALL FOR HANGING IN THERE.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH.  
> MY.  
> GOD.
> 
> i did it. _i finished it._
> 
> THANK YOU - to all you lovely, wonderful people who have stuck with this story with infinite patience,  
> THANK YOU for your amazing notes and support and just---  
> i love you all.
> 
> 💕💕💕

  
  
  


They’re on the roof.

_ On the roof. _

There is a clock tower in the distance.

The wind howls around them, thunder rolls so hard her bones rattle, the lightning cracks as if rending the fabric of space-time itself, and Killian---

Killian.

He’s standing with his arms around her, holding her while the world around them tears asunder, and she has never been this afraid. This is terror the likes of which she could never have fathomed, because she realizes in a long, slow, excruciating moment that to fear for another person is infinitely worse than to fear for oneself, and she is so

so 

so terrified for the man wrapped around her.

He’s looking at her, blue eyes calm and steady, even in this absolute cacophony, looks at her and holds her tight and lets warmth pulse through both of them, warmth and strength and the first sliver of hope, and then----

With a deafening crack the air around them  _ splinters _ .

A long tear, blacker than the thunderclouds overhead ratchets down an invisible seam and grows larger and larger until it is a bubble wrapped around the rooftop, dark and ominous and howling, and through the darkness comes a figure

the figure of a man, no---

the figure of

a boy.

A blond boy, tall and skinny, not far into his teenage years.

“Ah,” he says, stepping down to the concrete. “Finally.”

He is dressed like the hunters in medieval fairytales - brown and green clothing meant for camouflage in verdant territory, leather and wool and rough linen and he lifts up his hand and the howling, the lightning, the thunder all  _ stop _ .

The bubble holds, a ball of iridescent, swirling black, blocking out the town around them, wrapping them in a silence so complete, it does not seem part of this world. All Emma can hear is her own rapid, frightened breathing, and Killian’s lips next to her ear whispering, “Steady, love.”

There is no sound but what they make.

The boy walks up to them both as if he were taking a stroll down the well-manicured lawn of a country estate, blithe and carefree, except that his swagger has a touch of gunslinger to it. He looks at them both. His smile is wide and utterly vicious.

“Look at what we have here,” he says. “The Savior.” He rolls the word  _ Savior _ in his mouth like a piece of candy while his eyes flash briefly and his smile becomes wider and sickly sweet. “What a pleasure it is to finally meet you, Emma Swan.”

He knows her name. 

He knows her  _ name _ . 

Emma can’t move.

She can no longer feel Killian’s arms around her, can no longer feel the warmth between them. She is paralyzed, petrified, frozen.

Far far away she can feel Killian’s lips next to her ear, just a breath,  _ IAmHere _ .

Emma’s brain goes numb. It’s impossible. She’s not even here. She’ll wake up, and when she does she will be in her bedroom, turning over to hit snooze, because none of this is real.

The boy laughs. It’s a terrible sound. Then he lifts his hand with a look of extreme concentration in his eyes, and Emma can feel her entire body start to tingle as if a low current was running through it. It feels like thousands of ants running under her skin, tickling and stinging and almost painful, and Killian’s arms wrap around her more tightly, as if he can feel it, too.

And then it cuts out all at once, and the boy lowers his hand.

“Ahhhh,” he says, an exhale of profound satisfaction. “Now  _ that _ is what I’m looking for. Your magic is---” He cocks his head and smiles, a terrifying, cartoonish grimace. “ _ Compatible _ .” It sounds like he’s tasting something delicious.

He licks his lips. Emma can’t look away. 

He leans forward, his voice an intimate whisper. “And I will suck you dry of every last bit of it. Every last shred of magic I will suck from your marrow, so I really hope you’ll do better than the last one. As a matter of fact, let’s start with an incentive.”

And he flicks his hand.

Lightning strikes like the crack of a whip, rips Killian’s arms from around her, throws him backwards, 

sheer momentum towards the edge of the roof, and he stumbles

and he stumbles

tries to hold on to the edge, but his fingers miss,

she can see it

she can see him

and then he

falls

And all Emma can hear is herself.

Screaming.

  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“What. Just happened.”

August’s voice is pure steel and when he looks at David his eyes are just as hard. David nearly flinches. And then he realizes,  _ fuck _ . He’s in charge here. He is the deputy. A deputy who just watched his sheriff, his sheriff and a Boston detective  _ disappear  _ into thin air, and  _ fuck _ .

_ FUCK _ .

He is in no way equipped to deal with this.

But he  _ is _ in charge, and it’s time to cowboy the fuck up.

_ Now. _

“Ash,” Elsa’s voice is thin, bordering on hysterical. “Check for ash, check where they were standing, please---” 

She falls silent, drops to the floor and lets her hands roam the dirty station linoleum, wiping the floor with her fingers, almost manic, as she repeats, “Please, please, please----”

“Hey,” August says gently and kneels down beside her. “Elsa, stop. Stop.” He very carefully takes her wrists, doesn’t let go when she tries to pull them away. “Elsa.” He says again. “There is no ash.”

He holds up her wrists, so that Elsa can see grime and dirt on her fingers, but no cinders of any kind, and whispers, “This is not like Liam.”

And Elsa leans forward and presses her hands to her eyes.

For a long moment they all listen to Elsa’s labored breathing, and then she frees herself from August’s embrace and looks up.

“A spell,” she says. Her voice is unsteady. “It was a spell. Killian accidentally read it out loud.”

David can see Ashley shake her head and mumble,  _ That’sImpossible _ , can see Mary Margaret, her mouth a perfect, round  _ O _ , can see Elsa, tear tracks on her cheeks and the doctor going  _ WhatTheFuck _ , and then comes right back to the flint in August’s eyes.

“Where could they be?” Elsa sounds even more unsure now, and Ashley says, “Did those two just  _ vanish? _ ”

And then, like a dam breaking, everyone starts to talk all at once.

It’s a wall of sound and noise, absolute bedlam, until David can no longer hear himself think and he yells out loud, “EVERYBODY SHUT UP.  _ NOW! _ ”

And the room falls quiet.

August smiles and nods at him and it gives David courage. Not much. But enough.

“OK,” he says, going to the locker by the door and opening it. In it is a bank of fully-charged walkie talkies. “We don’t know what just happened.”

He looks at August. August nods again.

“But we saw Emma and Killian fucking disappear and they have to be  _ somewhere _ .”

Elsa nods.

Ashley nods.

He can’t see Mary Margaret’s face, because she’s wandered over to the triskelion map.

“Now - in case they are in the vicinity of this town, let’s look. OK?”

This time everyone nods.   
David starts to hand out walkies. 

“Everybody switch to channel two. You guys take everything north of Main Street,” he points at Victor and August. “Ashley, you and Elsa take everything south. Mary Margaret and I will---”

“Check the woods,” she cuts him off. “Look.” She points to the map. “I didn’t realize it before, but here’s the cabin. The cabin where Leroy stayed before he disappeared. Where you found the first set of notecards.”

And then she puts a pin at the center of Graham’s triskelion.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


There is a moment.

A moment of pure peace and tranquility and the knowledge that his life is complete. Because he has loved.

It strikes him then, like the hammer to a bell, that this is what his life comes down to. The fact that he has loved. That he  _ loves _ . Within the presence of pain and the absence of reason, the paths taken and missed and abandoned, the faces he can no longer remember and the ones he can never forget, he has loved. He has been loved.

The warmth inside him explodes, wraps around him like a cocoon of pure happiness and an armor of strength as he stumbles, backwards, with force,

through no will of his own

pulled 

pushed 

and then----

_ It’s all right, Emma. _

_ I love you. _

He hears a scream, hears something tear behind him, hears a whoosh and a crack and then 

he’s 

falling

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“Do you hear that?”

Mary Margaret holds up a hand and David stops in his tracks to listen. 

“I don’t hear anything,” he says.

“Exactly.” Mary Margaret’s brow furrows. “This isn’t quiet. November woods are quiet, obviously. There is much less animal activity in winter, but this is not quiet.” She looks at him. “This is  _ silence _ .”

David tilts his head and tries to pay attention and realizes that Mary Margaret is right. There is no wind nor rain, no creaking of branches nor cracking of underbrush, and no trace of the thunder and the lightning they heard back at the station. Listening to his surroundings is like falling into a well; an oppressive, muzzled, claustrophobic absence of sound. 

Mary Margaret takes his hand. Squeezes it like she’s holding on to him and he squeezes back just as hard. There is something out here, something unnatural and sinister, keeping the very air around them in a choke-hold, waiting for--- 

Whatever it is, it is not good. He knows that much for sure.

“Let’s get to the cabin.” All David can manage is a whisper.

It looks like all Mary Margaret can manage in return is a nod.

Then she lets go of his hand and turns to lead them away from the toll bridge, away from the river, and into the woods. David loses his bearings in less than a minute. The surrounding trees block out any view of the sky, not that it would have been of any help; it’s cloudy and the light is diffuse, coming from everywhere and nowhere. There are no shadows. It’s impossible to tell the direction of anything. 

And then there is the silence which is just getting worse.

He can hardly hear Mary Margaret’s movements, and she’s only a few feet ahead of him.

Can hardly hear his own breathing, his own footsteps; even the fabric swish of his clothes is muted, off, distant. It feels like his body doesn’t belong to him.

“Hey,” he tries to say, but it comes out garbled, a sound without meaning, and he feels a spike of panic. Mary Margaret is speeding up, walking faster though terrain familiar to her, but not to him, and he is falling behind. Trees have already obscured her twice.

“Wait,” he tries again, but again there is no word, there is just muddled frequency, like the mumbling of adults in children’s cartoons. In front of him Mary Margaret is not slowing down, he can see the sleeve of her red jacket loping slightly left and he tries to catch up, but he can’t, not quite.

Panic spikes harder and then he lunges, takes two running steps, three, and then launches himself forward, catches the hem of Mary Margaret’s anorak, just barely, but he can feel fabric, closes his fist around nylon and gore tex and they both go down hard.

“David!” Her eyes are large and worried, and her body feels very small underneath his.

Her exclamation gets swallowed by the air around them. There is no resonance at all. No reverb, no echo, the sound does not carry.   
He is inches from her face and almost doesn’t hear her.

She stares at him, fear creeping into her features, as he tries to catch his breath.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. He can hardly hear the words inside his own head. Then he leans down to whisper directly into her ear. “Something is out here.”

He feels more than sees her shake her head. 

“No.” She has put her own mouth to his ear in turn, and he feels her warm breath tickle. It’s such a small, mundane thing, but it’s comforting. 

She takes a deep breath, and then adds, “This is not the presence of something. It is the absence of something.”

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“Will you  _ stop that _ ,” says the boy standing before her, and snaps his fingers. Emma’s scream is cut off like a clipped string, and she gasps.

“Don’t worry,” he goes on. “He’s not smeared across your pavement.” The boy smiles. It’s vicious. “Yet.”

He licks his lips, grins at her. His features, his limbs, his body give the illusion of a male not yet in his twenties, but the square of his shoulders, the arrogant ease of his bearing, the twist of his cruel mouth all beg to differ. In his movement is power, in his posture command, and his eyes--- his eyes are ancient.

This is not a boy.

This may not even be a human being.

He points up at the tear, blacker than black down the sides of the iridescent bubble, and says, “No, Emma Swan. Your boy is somewhere else entirely.” 

Emma feels cold, colder than she ever has, feels the absence of Killian like a physical thing, like a soul-sucking, bone-chilling vortex of despair, and she can’t move a muscle.

Killian fell, fell like he did in every single vision, and she couldn’t stop it, should have stopped it, and what does he mean,  _ somewhere else entirely _ ?

How on earth does he know her name?

He cocks his head as realization hits Emma and smiles his vicious smile again. There is an odd, childlike glee about him, which supports the impression of boyishness while it emphasizes how very much he is not one. It’s completely unnerving.

“What do you say we dispense with the pleasantries,” he adds with a casual wave of his hand, “and get down to business?”

And Emma finds herself nodding. 

“Good,” he says. “Then let me introduce myself.” His smile becomes genuinely gracious for a brief moment as he takes a mocking bow. “My name is Peter. Peter Pan.” 

Everything inside Emma constrics as if squeezed by a gigantic vise. Her heart actually skips a beat, and then stutters as it starts to beat twice as fast as before.

“Ahhhhh.” Pan raises a mocking eyebrow. “I see you’ve heard of me.”

Yes. Well. Emma has read the book.

Years ago in the back of a decrepit library, hiding from the psychological warfare battleground that is every middle school cafeteria, she read a book about a boy who did not want to grow up. To have this ‘boy‘ now standing before her, cruel and dirty, with his depraved smile and his eyes older than time and imbued with magic strong enough to tear the fucking fabric of  _ reality _ , it’s simply too much.

Emma laughs out loud.

It’s thin and forced and lodged firmly south of hysteria, but it’s hers, and it’s sound, sound she’s making of her own free will, and it breaks the trance.

Something inside her rises, a steel core of pure will, because Killian is not out there on the pavement, he is  _ somewhere else entirely _ , which means he is not dead, and she is not alone, and she is not losing him, not losing anyone to this figment of a story that should never have been told. 

Because we all must grow up, sooner or later. Growing up is the point.

“I have heard of you,  _ boy _ ,” she says, and hardly recognizes her own voice. Pan’s eyes narrow, but before he can open his mouth she adds, “And you already know who I am. So let’s do dispense with the pleasantries. Why are you here?”

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


It is dark. Darker than night.

He can just make out the tops of tall trees all around, a dark slope of hillside, and the rushing of fast water.

He is on the toll bridge. 

Except that it’s not the toll bridge. This is not Storybrooke forest. It’s an echo of Storybrooke, a shadow version of it, devoid of light and life.

Killian shudders. It’s cold. He feels the absence of warmth, of Emma, of--- any living creature. The only reason he can see anything at all in this starless, moonless darkness, is because of a soft glow that comes from the railing of the bridge. He steps closer, and sees light, weak and faint, but there, emanating from the bottom of the bannister.

He crouches, remembers a different toll bridge a lifetime ago where he also crouched, where he reached for a wrist of warm skin and a pulse beating in time with his own.

Even if he didn’t know it then.

And then he leans back and looks up.

And there they are.

Runes, along the length of the railing, underneath the bannister, just like the ones up in Storybrooke, on the real toll bridge.

Ogham script runes.

Glowing.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  
  


“It’s really quite simple.” Pan leans forward. “And I’ve already told you. Not that I owe you any kind of explanation.” He quirks a vain eyebrow. “Neverland is running out of magic. The wellspring is running dry.” He licks his lips. “Your magic will replenish it.”

_ The wellspring is running dry.  _ Emma can see Killian sitting at David’s desk, notecards in front of him, speaking about  _ water eternal _ .

Neverland is real.

Her insides coil like a spring of a different kind. “Why not just take me then? Why kill all those people?”

Pan rolls his eyes. “Do you think I can just waltz into the Land without Magic any time I damn well please?” 

“The Land without--- what do you mean?”

“Oh, you’re such a  _ human, _ ” Pan scoffs. “You guys always think you’re the only game in town.”

Emma’s head is spinning, and she cannot stop thinking about Killian, and there is no spark.

“This is not like sending my shadow to snatch little kids from the comfort of their beds.” Pan’s eyes narrow. He is angry. “It takes power and skill to break the barriers. To travel between any realms is extremely difficult unless you’re a  _ mermaid--- _ ” the word is loaded with almost lethal hatred--- “but to enter the Land without Magic is damn near impossible. Because, as the name suggests,  _ it doesn’t have any magic. _ ”

The last sentence lands like a lead balloon at Emma’s feet, and she feels the truth of it, the inevitability. There is no magic. There never was.

“Then why are you here?” The questions stretches out into the unknown. Forever. The black iridescent bubble pulsates softly, but it doesn’t move.

There is no time here. Emma can feel it. The absence of time passing.

The absence of forward movement.

The eternal now.

“I am here because every once in a while, you do get someone with a spark.”

_ A spark. There is no spark. _

“And if a spark of magic is powerful enough to surface here, in this realm, devoid of all forms of it, well---” He licks his lips again. “Then that is just the spark I need.”

He straightens up, looks at her with utter condescension.

“Now then,  _ Emma, _ ” he sneers. “It has taken me considerable effort, not to mention vast amounts of Neverland magic and energy to breach the walls of this realm for a second time. Let’s see if you’re of more use than the last one.”

_ Elsa on a couch in her living room, surrounded by dozens of pictures of a smiling dead man, saying in that low voice full of infinite sadness, “It told me to unleash my magic.”  _

_ Saying, “It said it was here for my power.”  _

_ Saying, “I didn’t know and I couldn’t do what it asked, and then my husband died.” _

_ Sobbing. _

_ There is no spark. _

Instead, Emma remembers.

Something else.

  
  


-/-

  
  
  


On a deserted road near the north side of the town line, a medical examiner and a psychiatrist look at each other, exhausted.

The ME picks up the walkie strapped to her belt and presses the talk button.

“We got nothing up here,” she says. “How about you guys?”

Near the southern end of that same town line, a doctor and a former detective look just as exhausted and the ex cop shakes his head.    
“Nothing,” he responds. “And we’ve covered every scrap below Main Street.”

“Yeah,” comes the reply. “Same here. What about you, David?”

They wait, the four of them, two north and two south, wait, but nothing happens.

Static cracks twice, leaves the silence even quieter than before each time.

And then with a burst of white noise all the walkies go dead.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


The runes are Ogham but the language is nothing Killian has ever encountered. It is neither Old Norse nor Manx nor anything he’s ever seen. It seems to not even be made up of words, it is merely lines representing sound, sound without meaning, and he shudders again.

It is so, so cold.

But above him the runes are still glowing, and he shakes his head and takes a deep breath.

What does he have to lose.

He exhales slowly and starts to read them out loud.

  
  
  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


“No,” Emma says, and looks at Pan. “This is different. You just said you breached the barrier for the  _ second _ time, but--- I don’t think you’ve been here before. Not physically.”

_ Elsa talking about the sparks and the howling resolving into words, and all of them, every last one of the people involved with this case calling the culprit ‘it’. _

_ None of them have seen this Lost Boy. _

_ This is his first time in the Land without Magic. _

“She was  _ weak _ .” The disdain and pure hatred in Pan’s voice are absolute. “Do you know what it cost me? To reach into this soul-sucking void and siphon enough energy to even attempt to open the rift?”

“Siphon enough---” Emma gasps. “ _ That’s  _ why you killed those people? For their life force?”

“What else? I needed massive amounts of energy, needed it to power complicated spells and massive magical forces, and it’s not like you have any other power source in this vacuum.” He sneers. “And then I had her, I almost had her, and she  _ failed. _ ”

He looks at Emma, eyes burning, deranged.

“She was bound to your laws of physics and science. Couldn’t imagine anything outside of it. Couldn’t fathom the very concept of magic. Not even when I ripped her husband through a tear in your precious space-time continuum.” He leans towards Emma, his face inches from hers. “I thought it would bring out her spark like it has yours, but nothing.  _ NOTHING! _ ”

The last word is a scream, and then Emma feels it.

A small frisson of energy, pulsing in time with her heartbeat.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


In the complete and utter silence that surrounds them, Mary Margaret squeezes his hand again, hard, and David looks up. 

There it is.

The cabin. The cabin where it all began.

They walk up to it together, hands linked, and David would give anything to be able to go in alone, to leave Mary Margaret out here, outside, out of danger, but he knows she would never let him. He looks at her, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed with a look of pure determination, listening even in this absence of sound, all senses on high alert, and realizes---

He needs her.

He needs her to do this with him.

He cannot do it alone.

The stand still before the entrance and she looks at him and nods. It means more than he could possibly tell her. His jaw muscle jumps as he reins himself in and then nods back and squares his shoulders.

They enter the cabin together. It looks exactly the same. Evidence numbers still mark blood spatter and fluids, thin shafts of light fall through small windows, the silence around them is absolute, and then David hears it.

_ Hears it. _

From far, far away comes the sound. Of a voice.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


_ He looks at her with those blue eyes and that soft smile. Like she’s the only person on the planet. _

_ “I know you can do it, love.” _

_ His voice is warm and sure and he takes her hands. _

Emma opens her eyes and feels it

_ feels it _

the spark, the flame, and the roaring fire,

she has power

she  _ is _ power

and no boy demon with a god complex and a complete disregard for human life will tell her what to do with it. She will save those she can and mourn those she can’t and she will get Killian back from wherever Pan sent him, because she deserves this, she deserves to have this one, good, beautiful thing in her life, and because she loves---

She turns and looks straight at Pan and he flinches. He is afraid. It causes a thrum of extreme satisfaction inside Emma, and then she feels it.

Warmth.

Pulsing.

Oh, yes.  _ She is power _ .

“Where is he.” Her voice is steel and flint and no mercy. “Tell me.” She watches Pan shrug, but it looks more like a shudder. “Tell me  _ now. _ ”

The boy who isn’t squares his shoulders and raises his hand and Emma can feel energy, sharp and volatile, flowing from him, trying to counter her own.

“I don’t know,” he says.

It’s a lie. Emma knows lies. And his power is no match for hers. 

“Tell me,” she says again, and then Pan lifts his other hand.

With a crack the tear in the bubble opens and out pours  _ power _ , 

so much power, 

jagged pulses stabbing at her, ripping through her, around her, tearing at her like carnivores to the slaughter, and in the middle Pan, smiling, harnessing, focusing it, until it becomes one flowing line, directed at her.

Emma can feel electric arcs flash between her fingers, a crackling of energy as her spark  _ explodes _ , and then they burst forth in a solid beam of bright white light.

The warmth inside her rises, pressure so hard it pounds in her temples as she tries to control the beam, as she tries not to think, as she strains to aim it at Pan, but then---

A strike of lightning, a bolt of pure power, blindingly blue and viciously acute, hits her square in the chest.

It nearly breaks her in half.

It cuts off her breath, forces the air from her lungs, doubles her over. The energy flowing from her hands cuts out with a pop loud enough to burst her eardrums and dissipates and all Emma can feel is pain.

“Did you think I wouldn’t come prepared,” Pan’s voice hisses, “do you think you’re the first person to think of fighting back?”

Emma falls to her knees. Tries to get air into her lungs, but all around her is static, arcing in buzzing, humming flashovers, and she  _ cannot breathe _ .

The force coming at her is so strong she feels like she’s being torn apart from the inside, her cells straining to hold together and not let her disintegrate into an aerosol spray of blood and lymph and lipids, and still it comes

_ still it comes--- _

“Your power is  _ mine _ , Savior.” Pan’s voice seems to come from everywhere at once. 

Emma’s body is screaming. Her heart is hammering so hard it may actually beat out of her chest, and then suddenly the energy changes and starts to pull  _ from  _ her. 

It feels like everything inside her, everything she is and was and ever will be is being sucked out into an endless void and she can feel her power, her life force, her very essence torn from her straining cells like marrow sucked from a bone--- 

gushing 

spouting

hemorrhaging

draining her down to a useless pile of bones

_it_ _hurts_

_ so much _

Emma screams.

She gasps like a fish on dry land, tiny, useless bits of air, as her fingertips sputter and fizz, as she tries to get up, as the warmth seeps from her spasming body, she howls---

a sound of pure and desperate frustration as she tries, 

tries, 

tries to  _ get up _ \---

“I am so tired of your theatrics,” Pan says, disdain dripping from every syllable. “Now shut up and serve your purpose.”

And he snaps his fingers.

Blackness swirls out from the tear, blacker than night, blacker than death, and she can feel it wrap around her, can feel herself being sucked into a vortex of nothing, a void of silence and grief and despair and she suddenly realizes.

She is going to lose.

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


As Killian reads, the runes start to glow brighter, start to hum, start to vibrate and warmth, warmth starts to spread through his frozen limbs, so he keeps reading, his voice steady, his thoughts on Emma, and the warmth spreads and spreads and fills him until he feels her, 

_ he feels her _

fighting, straining, with everything she has, just outside of,

just outside of---

He can feel a presence behind him---

  
  


.

  
  


“David!” Mary Margaret screams and suddenly the voice echoes all around them, speaking words David doesn’t know, can’t place, can’t even tell apart, but the voice is warm somehow, steady, not threatening, and then----

light explodes into the cabin

brighter than sunshine, brighter than daylight, and Mary Margaret links her fingers through his and stretches out her other hand, towards the light that curls around her fingers, wraps around her arm, and grows brighter and brighter

he can feel it

pulsing

feeding off of him and the woman holding his hand, but David

is not afraid----

  
  


.

  
  


Down the deserted roads to the north and the south of the town line, two people each watch in awe as a bright white beam of light shoots straight up out of the forest and into the sky, lighting up the dark clouds, burning them away, and then curves,

curves 

gracefully

towards the center of town

towards the roof of the town hall

and then something screams, loud enough for them to hear it, over a mile away

and then a black cloud explodes, wisps and wings and streams of darkness torn asunder, still screaming, dissipating

and four people break into a run----

  
  


.

  
  


Emma feels it the moment before it hits, feels a surge of warmth and more energy and then a bright beam of white light pierces the bubble and tears it to shreds and there is the howling she’s heard in her head,

there is the blackness, the wind, and the red sparks,

_ there is the heartbeat _

Across from her is Pan, his face a grimace of pain and fury, 

behind him is the tear, starting to glow

around her wrap the tendrils of light that splintered the bubble

and she can hear the outside world again, can feel that heartbeat that isn’t hears, can feel Elsa and Ashley and Victor and August out in the streets of Storybrooke, looking for her, for Killian, for them, 

can feel David and Mary Margaret, love and power, inside the beam

can feel herself becoming this power

and then

she hears his voice,  _ his voice _ , calm and steady and oh so lovely, as it speaks to her in sounds she doesn’t know but somehow understands and she turns

steps forward

and pushes, pushes Pan backwards, towards the edge of the roof, towards the tear that is now white light and flame pulsing

and Pan screams as she hauls him with the strength of her whole body, he howls as she throws him and the tear swallows him whole----

But it doesn’t close.

There is something inside of it.

Something reaching out to her, a heart beating with force, desperate, hopeful, until that heartbeat is everything she hears, everything she feels, and with her last burst of energy she reaches into the tear and starts to pull

pull 

_ pull _

  
  


Behind her the door to the rooftop opens and they spill out of it, Elsa and Ashley and Victor and August, but she doesn’t see them, doesn’t notice, because she can feel him now

_ she can feel him _

and the heartbeat  _ splits _ , 

separates 

becomes two heartbeats

as she pulls and pulls and pulls and  _ pulls _

and Pan is still howling, trying to claw back to her side

and August is holding on to Victor who is holding on to Ashley who is holding on to Elsa who is holding on to Emma as she  _ pulls _

and pulls

her bones and muscles and tendons screaming

screaming in pain and pressure and tension, but she is not losing this

_ she is not losing him _

and then

everything

shatters 

  
  


.

  
  


When Emma opens her eyes the sky above her is blue. There’s not a cloud in the pale November sunshine. A soft, chilly breeze caresses her face.

The world is still, but not silent.

She can hear slow movement and groaning as the people around her struggle to their feet, and she sits up.

It’s an ordinary rooftop. Not even very high. There are no signs of battle.

To her left August and Victor are pulling each other up, and behind her she can hear Ashley and Elsa asking “Everybody all right?”, and in front of her, near the edge of the rooftop---

“Emma?”

She starts to sob, because he’s there, scruff and wild hair and worried blue eyes, he’s here, he’s  _ here _ , getting up and wiping his hands and walking towards her and she has never ever  _ ever _ seen anything as wonderful, as amazing in her whole entire life as this man who hauls her to her feet and hugs her and hugs her and hugs her until he’s sobbing, too.

“I am never letting go,” she says.

“I don’t want you to,” he replies.

They stay like that, for minutes that feel like hours, his nose in the crook of her neck and her head buried in his chest, until Emma hears another voice say, “Killian?”

This is not a voice she has ever heard before.

It doesn’t belong to any of them.

She looks up and sees a man stepping forward from behind a fan casing, a tall man with close-cropped brown hair and haunted eyes and a puzzled expression on his face, a face Emma has seen smiling and laughing inside a hundred picture frames, his eyes glued to Killian’s back and then next to her Emma can feel more than hear Elsa take a ragged breath, and another, and whisper, “It can’t be,” and then August bolts forward to catch Elsa as she faints.

And at that moment the rooftop door opens and expels David and Mary Margaret, stumbling, winded, Mary Margaret trying hard to catch her breath, and then David says, “What did we miss?”

  
  
  
  
  


**EPILOGUE**

  
  
  


“As far as I can tell it’s gone.”

Emma holds up her hands. Bare hands, utterly ordinary. There is no spark.

Killian simply pulls her back against him. He has not been out of contact for the last 24 hours and if Emma has anything to say about it, he never will be. She still feels warm only when pressed against him, feels the peace of hearing his heartbeat when she lays her head on his chest, but there is no spark.

She is happy there isn’t.

“Do you miss it?” Killian’s voice is soft.

“No,” she says. “I never really had it.”

“I love you.” He smiles at her. “I love you so much.”

They are wrapped around each other on her couch, her ratty, comfortable couch, in her wonderfully comfy warm living room, and she never wants to move another muscle.

“I love you, too,” she says. “Do we have to leave?”

“You know we do,” he says quietly. 

Emma groans.

But he’s right, dammit.

  
  


-/-

  
  


Everyone is already at the station when they get there.

Elsa and the tall man look like they’re trying to occupy the same space. The man briefly breaks away to give Killian a long, hard hug, and then gravitates right back to Elsa as Killian moves right back next to Emma.

There will be time for them later.

August is still wiping his eyes off and on.

“Look,” David says, because someone has to break the silence. “It’s not like we can ever tell anyone what happened.”

“Or fully understand it,” says Mary Margaret.

“Or fully understand it,” David echoes. “But I figured that maybe we want to talk about it once, while we’re all still together.”

“And have slept.” Ashley grins. “Or at least  _ I _ slept. Some people in this room may not have.”

She gets up and walks over to Elsa and the tall man. “I’m assuming you’re the famous Liam?”

He nods. “I don’t know about famous, but Liam I am.”

Emma smiles and Elsa rolls her eyes, but then she returns Emma’s smile with such a brilliant one of her own, Emma is blinded for a moment.

“Look,” Liam says. “I know you all want to know where I’ve been and how I got back here, but I can’t tell you. I--- wasn’t.”

“You don’t have to talk about it here,” Elsa says.

“Or ever,” Killian adds, and Emma has to grin at the utterly annoyed psychiatrist-look Elsa shoots him.

The rest of them nod, but Liam shakes his head.

“No, you don’t understand. It wasn’t awful or anything. It just--- wasn’t. One moment I was in my living room in Boston and the next I just--- was not.” He lifts his hands. “I can’t really explain it. It’s like I was sleeping. I don’t remember  _ being _ . Until suddenly I found myself on a bridge.”

Killian draws a sharp breath and Emma wraps her arms around his waist, squeezes until she feels him relax.

“It took me a long time to remember who I was.” He looks at Elsa. “Took me a long time to remember you.” His voice is quiet.

“It’s OK,” she says, and leans up to kiss him.

When they finally pull apart, there is not a shred of embarrassment between them.

“At least I think it took a long time.” Liam says. “I don’t know if time passed there.” He falls quiet. Nobody moves for a very long moment.

  
Then Emma walks over to the whiteboard.    
“Let’s look at what we know.” She points at August’s graphic. “Neverland was running out of magic, and Pan was trying to harvest it here.” She laughs and says, “There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.” From out of the corners of her eyes she can see a lot of nodding.

“Originally he found Elsa. Opened a small rift and started reaching through it to murder people and siphon their life force in order to make the rift bigger. Big enough for him to go through.”

“It’s highly likely that he’s been doing this for centuries,” Killian adds. “Millennia, possibly. Think about it. Time doesn’t exist in Neverland, but all that life force has to come from somewhere. The fact that the spells carved on the victims were mimicking human language tells me that there must have been contact, contact dating back many, many generations.” He scratches behind his right ear as he tries to harness his next thought. “And think of the lore-- all those stories of magic and otherworldly creatures, on the Isle of Man especially. There is so much of it -- in Norse mythology as well. So many similar stories and legends, all of them incredibly detailed considering they are more than a thousand years old. Some more than two thousand. I think this has been going on for a very long time.”

Emma feels a rush of fondness watching him explain, features animated, hand gestures making his points, every inch the nerdy professor, and in that moment she loves him so much it almost hurts. 

When he turns to look at her again, eyes shining and so very in his element, she vows to herself that his detective days have to draw to a close.

This man needs to be around books again, books, and scholars, and ivy covered walls. Or at the very least walls not spattered in blood and urine.

She nods, along with the rest of them, because he’s making perfect sense. “When we were fighting Pan asked if I thought I was “the first one to fight back”. It would support your hypothesis.” 

Killian beams at her after the word ‘hypothesis’. They are going to have so much fun later, using that word in a  _ completely _ different context. It will be the most educated dirty talk  _ ever _ . She grins at the thought and then clears her throat to cover the heat that just shot into her cheeks and turns back to the board. 

“So with each sacrifice Pan gets stronger, and the sacrifices link through the quill--- wait.” She looks at Ashley. “That’s why you couldn’t name the elements. It’s from an animal that’s from a whole different plane of existence.”

“Nicely put,” says the ME. “My supposition exactly.”

“Then what about the connections?” Emma asks. “If all you had to do to be next in line was touch the quill, why are we all connected?”

“I don’t know if this helps,” Liam says, and looks at Killian. “I remembered you last, LB.” He shakes his head again. “And I can’t explain it, but the moment I did, I got the urge to write down these sounds I kept hearing all around me. Write them down somewhere they would last, but not easily seen, so I carved them into the bannister of the bridge. On the down side.”

“How?” Elsa stares at him. “Liam - how did you write a language you don’t know, in a script you don’t know?”

“I heard your heartbeat,” Emma whispers. “The day I met Killian, I started to hear your heartbeat.”

Liam’s brow furrows. “My heartbeat? How could you possibly hear my---”

“I think you called me,” Killian says, a slight tremor to his voice. “I think you called me--- to the case, to Storybrooke, and to---”

His voice cuts out. Emma glances up at him, and oh, the look he gives her.

Sorrow and joy and pain and happiness and so, so much love.

She can’t speak for a moment.

She only snaps out of it when August clears his throat. Loudly.

“Connection,” she says. “Whatever the magic was that Pan was after, I don’t think it was just inside Elsa and me. I think it connected us all. Look at all of us, here. And all of us who---” she swallows hard-- “cannot be here, but were part of this.”

Killian takes her hand. The warmth still flows.

“It was love,” he says, his voice soft and fond. “All of it. Love is not just romantic love. Graham taking recovering addicts to find themselves in nature. Dr Boyd finding a stubborn orphan on a bench and seeing something inside her, enough to make an effort to change her life.” He squeezes Emma’s fingers, hard. “August picking up a newborn by the side of the road when he was just a little boy himself. Even Victor---” he smiles wistfully--- “finding connection and solace in a back room. Love is a very powerful thing. I think it  _ would _ transcend realms and language and just respond to need.” 

  
  


They all fall silent, and then Elsa clears her throat. “Were we all connected by circumstance? By a series of events? Or did these events all happen to us because we were connected?” She smiles. “Who knows? But in the end---” she looks up at Liam, who smiles down at her with the exact same smile Killian has when he smiles at Emma--- “what does it matter? We’re here.”

She kisses her husband.    
“We’re here, and he’s gone, and we can chop this up six ways from Sunday, and we  _ will--- _ ” she looks around-- “but we may never fully understand it and I for one need a fucking drink.”

And Liam smiles and says, “That’s my girl.”

  
  
  


-/-

  
  
  


That night, after grilled cheese sandwiches and fries and lots and lots of drinks, after laughter and lightness and a moment of silence for the departed---

after August proclaims he cannot wait another fucking moment and hauls Victor up the stairs, and David says something much more polite which amounts to exactly the same thing and pulls Mary Margaret out of the diner at a near run---

after Ashley drives back to Bangor and Elsa and Liam get into a car headed for Boston and all the good-byes are finally said---

finds Emma and Killian back on her ratty, comfortable couch, in her wonderfully comfy warm living room, and Emma sighs as Killian bends down to kiss her.

“I don’t want to move again,” she says. “I am so tired.”

Killian’s lip quirks and he looks at her as his tongue does something absolutely indecent and his eyes flash.

“I could move a  _ bit _ ,” he says, and then he gets up and in one fell swoop throws her over his shoulder and Emma screams a laugh.

“OK OK OK!” she shrieks, and then laughs again, because he’s stomping down the hallway to the bedroom and then he just dives them onto the bed and goes very still on top of her.

“I don’t want you to worry,” he says.

Emma’s laugh catches in her throat.

“Worry?” she asks.

“About the future,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

God, how she loves him.

“Good,” she says, voice a little bit choked. 

“Wherever we go, we go together,” he says. His eyes are large and so, so serious, and she almost doesn’t notice that the last part sounded like a question.

But she does notice.

“Together,” she says, and feels him exhale. “Together, wherever we go.”

He smiles. Smiles that soft, fond smile of his. “I love you so much.”

She smiles back. Happy and sure. “I love you, too.”

Then his grin becomes impish and he twitches his hips.

“How much?” He asks, and it sounds absolutely wicked.

“Let me show you,” she whispers, and flips them around.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Well. FML.
> 
> Here we go again with the plot boa constrictors and the winding roads, but please note that i am also starting the CSSNS fic. For the first time in my life i will have two WIPs running concurrently.
> 
> Please bear with me. These updates can only come as fast as i can write them, and with the epic undertaking that is our S5 CSSNS rewrite, that might not be very fast.
> 
> i humbly ask for your patience and understanding. ❤


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